The studio behind Star Wars Zero Company, which is currently a Steam bestseller, has reportedly furloughed the majority of its staff
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/the-studio-behind-star-wars-zero-company-which-is-currently-a-steam-bestseller-has-reportedly-furloughed-the-majority-of-its-staff/Open linkView original on piefed.social
109 replies
They did their thing. No use of them anymore :)
Gane dev gig economy
This game has absolutely horrendous performance problems.
It baffles me that people are rating this higher than games like KOTOR and Republic Commando.
I guess because it’s new? Xcom has s big fan base too
And wasn't xcom buggy as shit too? Lol
99% chance of no bug
99% chance to uninstall and never go back.
Replace "wasn't" with "is" and you're correct. I still love XCOM 2, play it to this day. But it's a buggy mess and sometimes it feels it's just held together with software-ducttape and positive thoughts lmao.
The carry unit mechanic still needs a mod to work properly, otherwise the carried unit's position is only updated on the visuals, not mechanically.
It's ass given how important it is.
Well the gameplay is very different, and maybe people like the way star wars feels when applied to XCOM type strategy games?
People are not looking at the performance in isolation when rating games.
Steam reviews for other games says otherwise. Plenty of games with reviews only on performance.
Performance is a stinking mess but gameplay is a joy. It's not XCOM but it's great in its own right.
Because people like us in the tactics genre really are used to incredibly buggy and laggy games. XCOM, anything made by paradox - all of that suffers from performance issues and gameplay bugs. It's a bit like buying something from bethesda - you just expect those kinds of problems, which is why it doesn't really influence our rating.
Also, it isn't that big of a deal in a turn based tactics game to have all the animations be silky smooth or responsive like it is in games with real-time combat. The quality doesn't directly affect the play experience for the most part.
A turn based game at 30 frames plays the same as it does at 60 or 120. It only doesn't look as good. Can't say the same for other genres.
Can't even play with your wookie in this game
Meh, i can tolerate shitty fps and even some stutter on turned based games. It's not ideal but not as much of a deal breaker.
I would still say it's worth buying at least from my personal experience. I'm still really enjoying the game despite the performance but it's probably heavily dependent on your system.
Not worth buying with how they have treated the dev team with these lay offs but it's a perfectly reasonable game to pirate if one wants to play it.
That's not really detrimental to a game this like though. Some pop in and occasional hitching isn't going to cause a character death or a missed shot, it's just mildly annoying. It's definitely no kotor, but it's fun as hell.
Games having dodgy performance on release is effectively normal now.
It makes more sense to rate based on the gameplay otherwise 99% of releases would be 1 star.
But how likely is any optimisation going to be forthcoming if there's no-one working on it?
I imagine that's the difference the majority and all?
I expect the remainder are the department heads planning out the next game.
Now?
The first video game I ever l played was Pong.
Dodgy performance on release has always been the case. Would like to hear the tale of the Atari ET game?
Being able to remotely update games after release definitely lowered the bar for release considerably.
Im not saying there were no bugs before that, definitely not.
Can't remember any particular performance problems with ET - it's no more flickery than any other 2600 game, sound plays fine, screen changes when you fall in a hole are prompt, all that kind of thing. Now, utterly bizarre and unintuitive gameplay, yes; it has that in spades. Also quite unfinished, but Howard Scott Warshaw only got five weeks to develop it so I'm prepared to point the blame at Atari for that.
Like any good train wreck there are always many reasons why they happen.
performance is not everything
At this point in human evolution, I can't understand how anybody would want to be in the gaming industry anymore. I would not blame any developer if they just decided "fuck it" and quit altogether. I'd applaud it, actually.
The corpo gaming industry, perhaps. I've seen various indie developers have a great time.
The 0.1% who actually hit it big. Let's not include survivorship bias here :)
You don't go into indie to hit big though. You do it because it's your passion, just like any other creative out there.
You can't pay rent or for food with passion. Indie as in making it your job is brutal.
Indie as a hobby while having a day job can be peachy (I'm doing it myself).
Yep and that's why it's really important to have government investment to increase the chances of getting games out there. For example, Untitled Goose Game got government grants and was a huge success - there are many other examples also. Without the grants, they wouldn't have been able to make it.
You don't really have to "hit it big" even moderate success (comparatively) is enough to pay the bills for a long while from what I've heard from a few indie devs online.
Hitting it big, In Indie terms, is making even $1 in profit, though.
Like 90% don't even make back their budget
I wanted to be in the video game industry when I was younger and followed through with it by learning programming and pretty much everything I could with computers.
But then while I was in university, the story about EA's working culture broke. How they'd say hours were normal but they might need extra hours during "crunch time", which sounded reasonable until you learned that they just set deadlines such that it was always crunch time. The partners of EA workers did a class action suit against the company and won it IIRC.
That was enough for me to adjust my trajectory. I realized the suddenly obvious bit: people usually go into the video game industry because they have a passion for video games, which sets them up for exploitation like any other job that many people want to get in to.
I might still make a video game but I never intend to be a peon in the video game industry.
I always had this arrangement at the companies I worked for, except the "normal hours" were actually me doing next to nothing, and the "crunch time" was me genuinely busting my ass for a few weeks nearly every waking hour to get the software finished and out the door. It was nothing more than an extension of how I handled college rather than some arrangement that the companies intentionally offered. Management was always just so utterly fucking clueless about anything related to the technical side of software development that it was easy to fool them into thinking that my way of doing things was just normal for the field.
This whole industry is job security hell. Man, people decades ago dreamed of being somewhere in the industry. I don't really know now who'd want to be in it knowing how awful job security even is.
It's like the movie industry, now. They only have a job as long as the game is in production, and all they get is the weekly paycheck.
Except they're not set up to be able to do that like the movie industry is.
Sounds like a problem for the devs right everyone?
When I was a teenager, I really wanted to work in the video game industry. Really glad I don't. I still want to learn to make video games, but I never want to work for any video game company. Especially any that have been around for say.. 20 years and/or publicly traded.
Unfortunately, you're not the demographic the industry is looking for. What they want now is obedient, but expendable staff who'll only be on long enough to see a project done. Then you're discarded. The other pocket of people they'd want is, you know what type.
You're better of being your own independent video game worker.
Yeah, I went to school for it. Never broke in. Ended up with a much better and wayyyy more stable job.
Couldn't imagine trying to get in now that every studio is owned by like ~3 companies.
And, there it is.
There go my hopes of a post launch performance patch.
The game runs like arse even on a 9070XT.
60-70fps with egregious cutscene pop-in even after the INI engine tweaks mod on a 5090 is criminal.
“Firaxis” developers create a working game challenge (impossible)
Lmao I built my computer 8 years ago, and it was mid tier even then. Runs it just fine. You may need to tweak some settings.
I think we have a very different opinion on what runs fine. I wouldn’t be PC gaming on eight year old hardware. My PS5 and Series X are five years old and I don’t much like how they run modern games.
I’m sure your setup is fine for you but ZCOM has obvious performance issues represented by the Steam user reviews. Ignoring that isn’t truthful.
Okay, what would you like details on?
It runs without stuttering, the controls are responsive, there's no lag. Like, what do you suspect I'm experiencing that I'm not telling you about? I'm unsure what could be different about my set up from all of the people having issues. Perhaps I'm just lucky?
Game runs fine for me (4070 Super), but I can't play more than 20 minutes without hitting bugs.
I'm not sure I'd say not being able to play longer than 20 min without hitting bugs is "running fine"
You can have performant jank :D
Running smooth but encountering logical error that messes up the ability to play
Is different from
Sluggish performance and choppy rendering
Unions. Not just for blue collars anymore.
All devs should be entitled to royalties
Honestly, I don't understand why any studio wouldn't do this. Not only does it mean you can differ some pay until later effectively (obviously you still need to be competitive, because people don't like gambling with their livelihood), but it actively encourages devs to make the best game possible. If they're just working for a salary, they have no skin in the game. Give them a reason to make the absolute best thing they possibly can make.
Hollywood perfected royalties. If structured right, you can promise everyone at the company 200% of the games profit and never pay them a cent.
For example, you sell all rights to the game to a shell company owned by the studio's parent for 1¢.
This all sounds nice but isn’t the case in any other industry, why should game dev be different?
I made a statement on what they should do, for best results from employees, not on what they actually do. It should also be true for all other industries. I think all company profits should be shared with employees, and ideally owned, if not totally then at least in part, by employees. Give them a stake in the company, and a reason to care about how it's doing, and they'll put more effort in.
The fact this is incomprehensible to the capitalist class isn't surprising though. They view humans as resources (hence the Human Resources Department), not as people with their own wants and desires.
But what about the moneyyyyyyyyy?
Yet another certified bruh moment,
The devs keep getting stabbed in the back by evil greedy CEOs
I won’t even buy the game then
This is why I pirate most games unless it's from indie devs. Fuck any and every corpo entity. Like hell I'm gonna let them profit from me while stabbing those who actually did the work in the back.
Gamerant is saying the studio was low on funds and facing a $20 million dollar lawsuit from a former exec when the workers were furloughed weeks prior to launch, that dozens of employees have already been brought back, and that Bit Locker is claiming to want to bring the rest back.
This was their first game, and if they do bring back the team members (with back pay) now that the game is a sucess, I would actually be much more understanding.
What's the point? You can't even enjoy your laurels. Just fucked the minute release hits so they dont have to pay you. Fucked up. Nobody should work for a game corporation.
My actual goal, anymore.
A wise man once said devs that are afraid of losing their jobs dont go on to make great games. I was going to purchase this game but now ill wait till its on super sale.
I saw it available on high seas
Leveraged buyout. Any dev still on payroll is a liability, and it's not like these guys make Ultimate Team. EA's got a lot of debt to service.
EDIT:
Actually, they might not be wholly owned by EA. I'm uncertain of the relationship here. It could just be that the developer stretched their budget down to the last second, before they're paid out.
TTRPG does not apply here. They meant it's a tactics game.
Made by bit reactor who are independent
Yeah, maybe that's in the paywalled article that this one cites, but it was only via summaries I saw elsewhere that I realized EA might not own them.
I think we're approaching a point where games are going to be made like movies.
Teams assembled for one project, everyone does their bit, and are then discarded when they're no longer needed.
Big publishers will probably have a pool of people they can push between projects depending on what's needed. Ubisoft appear to do that, when you look at the credits in their games, there's like 10 subsidiary studios involved. For smaller studios, you'll probably be let go between games until you're needed again. Maybe they'll keep your information and rehire you because you did a good job of hard surface rigging or whatever last time. Maybe they hire an excited school-leaver to sloperate a clanker. Who knows.
Approaching?
AAA has been following that model for a decade.
They don't give a shit about the people that work for them and fire them as soon as it's convenient.
They fire people and allow them to re-apply for their job because then they don't have to pay continued service rewards.
Major difference is that in Hollywood, you don't hire a bunch of, say, VFX artists for a movie, you contract the company that retains them. They'll generally still have jobs when the movie is over. It's mostly just the cast, director and writers that work on a per-project basis. Games industry is somehow worse than Hollywood.
A lot of them do seem to do that. The credits for most games are ludicrously long and thank dozens of subcontracted companies.
I honestly don't think your average AAA studio could even tell you how much AI slop is in their final product. It's not none, and hasn't been for years.
The unfortunate reality of it now, like having to keep your CV constantly updated and ready if ever to be laid off at any time. And it's worse than ever.
You'll be surprised how many Star Wars games got canned in the last two years. I can't really say because of NDAs and don't want anyone in trouble. The whole industry is in trouble.
"the whole industry" lmfao no. Just shitty AAA studios that can't function without a c suite fucking up everything to milk as much profit as possible for their shareholders. Blessings to the indie devs, and fuck the rest of them. Hope they burn and give real studios a chance.
I agree on this actually, I was referring really to that when I said industry. I think indie devs, well most, have a love for it so it's not industrialized.
I was considering buying this as a massive fan of XCOM 2.
Was.
I'll just keep playing Cyber Knights: Flashpoint thank you very much.
Check out Xenonauts 2. It's positioned as a spiritual sequel of classic X-COM, rather than modern XCOM, though so there are differences.
Probably the best difference, and I don't understand why modern XCOM did this, is classic and Xenonauts have larger squad sizes. This is huge, because the entire genre is about gambling on actions. If you only have four actions, taking a 50% shot, but potentially being in danger, is an issue. If you have 8+ actions (8 squad members minimum, and you'll often get multiple actions per member), a 50% shot is a lot less risky. It's more about setting yourself up to get many attacks, rather than one perfect attack. There's a lot more opportunities to mitigate risk.
It also has a much stronger strategic game, which I feel is largely lacking in modern XCOM. It's all about tactical battles. This game, in particular, I think is almost entirely tactical battles, with little strategic opportunity, and no strategic layer IIRC.
I actually prefer the smaller squad sizes and more barebones strategic level. Having a more RPG-like structure and more focus on a small number of characters is my jam. I looked at xenonauts, I think it's absolutely amazing for a specific kind of player, and I know that I'm not that specific kind of player.
Menace's solution to this is to basically remove the option for most weapons to miss entirely. A squad in that game is treated like a single unit, the equivalent to an XCOM/Xenonauts soldier. When you attack, it's the same percentage roll applied to every bullet in the burst for each soldier. This means a single attack might have 40 individual dice rolls. The question is not if you hit, it's for how much. Seems like a nice way of solving that issue without adding a whole bunch of units.
Cyber Knights does something similar: an attack with most weapons is a burst with each bullet's chance to hit being individually rolled. This normalizes the chance to hit so it's not all or nothing.
Loved xcom ufo defense. Didn't even bother with the newer games because of the squad size. Xenonaughts is a great recommendation, thanks for being here for us all.
Menace
I love that game, played the crap out of it, waiting for another major patch to come back.
"Congratulations. Great job. Goodbye now."
Yeah I'll not be buying this then.
If CEO fire whole team, how will you create a new success?
Good teams are not conodity.
For anyone who wants this style of game, but doesn't want to support this, Xenonauts 2 released version 1.0 a few months ago. It's trying to be more classic X-COM, rather than modern XCOM, like what this game is copying (and simplifying even more). It's easily the best of the genre I've played, and it'll also run on pretty much any system you've got fine.
Eh, played the shit out of it and happy to give them money. But holy shit is the late game kinda poop.
I haven't played much of XCOM 2 or this game, but the late game of all of these games is usually not the best. Honestly, this is true for most strategy games. How many Paradox games actually make it to the end, for example?
It's essentially something that's impossible to balance in a fair way. Either the game scales automatically to match you, in which case your effort is meaningless, or it doesn't, and it's either trivial or impossible.
I just started a new game recently though. When I last played the end game didn't even exist IIRC, so I can't comment on it.
This one is just a drag even compared to others, there is just something missing altogether vs even old xcom.
Maybe Xenonauts 3 will fix it, or whatever they do next. It's still far better than Modern XCOM, from what I recall. Modern XCOM does some things well, but it's also dumbed down.
Yeah, lets hope. They have a good game, but xeno 1 and 2 are just too much the same game. I found that the big ass suit Koolade manning though was was neat but after 150 times it gets old. Also the balance is really off in Xenonauts 2 I do hope they can do a bit more.
I'm sick of this
I gave it the 2 hour test run on Linux and I get getting blackscreens and stutter so unfortunately it went to refund town.
Live by the AAA die by the AAA
So to reduce time spent looking for new jobs, devs should make sure games take even longer to develop and are in even worse shape at release so they have to hold onto the team for bug fixes.
I haven't run into any game breaking bugs on PS5 (Pro, at least). It's unfortunate that it seems like PC has had the brunt of the bugs.
I've definitely seen some shadow bugs and texture things, but the game runs smooth for the most part otherwise.
I hope they get a chance to fix the issues.
Well that is what happens when a project is done and there is no immediate need for that staff for another project. If you want job security don't work on TV shows, films, or video games. You really can't expect a corporation to keep paying you if they no longer have work for you to do.
Except one of the best assets of a game company is people who know how to make a good game. Retaining their talent is worth the extra pay. Treating veteran game makers like replaceable cogs is how you get the current AAA game industry, with nothing but overpriced lukewarm soul-dead rehashes of prior games that are full of bugs and devoid of merit.
The big corps seem to think that their talent is all in their upper management, and that's why the industry sucks donkey balls these days.
Yeah, this isn't reasonable. A good studio will have been preparing for what they're doing next before the project is finished. Keeping a team together who knows what they're doing and already knows how to cooperate together is worth a lot. This is just a sign of bad management, and sadly they're not the ones losing pay.
The art world is dog eat dog. You are not owed a living in the entertainment business in the slightest.
Everyone who works is owed a living. The entertainment industry is needlessly vicious.
FIFY.
Fair point!
This is some dogshit bootlicking mentality.
Sort your priorities, mate, and quit carrying water for your oppressors.