best thing about in person events are the people, it’s a reminder that the noise of social media isn’t real life
everyone is happy and welcoming to everyone because we all love videogames and that’s the point
can’t wait to see more smiling faces this weekend ❤️
This is essentially how I left EA. When we finished development on the first Alice game, I went traveling. While on vacation in India I got the news that EA had laid off my creative partner, RJ Berg. And that they'd pulled the console development contract from Alice developer, Rogue Entertainment (which killed the studio).
I was asked to come back so that I could begin my next phase of existence at EA - being put into some sort of VP training program. Onward and upward!
It was "We're firing all your buddies and promoting you."
So I quit. Left San Francisco entirely. Just said, "I'm done."
Many (MANY) of my friends at EA at that time called me to tell me I was "insane" "crazy" and demand I explain wtf I was doing. For a lot of them, explaining that I felt moving up the ladder on the backs of my fired friends was unacceptable, just made no sense. "That's how the game works." "Stick around and you'll be rewarded."
Well, the reward is that I am sitting here 25 years later not feeling like a jerk for taking the wrong path.
@TheCartelDel@nickjcal The algorithm shrimply rewards “engagement”, and the easiest way to get engagement is to try rustle jimmies.
That, unfortunately, isn’t going to change any time soon.
Very insightful & nuanced review.
It’s true that Japan can be very strict about rules & procedures. As I mentioned in my post two posts ago, if there were a WAFFLE HOUSE in Japan, they probably would never have sold me their actual physical menu as a souvenir due to store policy, even if I asked.
The game market is unique in some ways as well, but when it comes to PC gaming, Western games are actually quite widespread and sell very well here.
As for living in Japan, I do think it can suit some people more than others. It’s true that work tends to occupy a relatively large portion of people’s lifestyles here, and more importantly — although this exists in every country to some extent (this is an important premise, and I’ll say it again: this exists in every country) — Japan comparatively tends to reward “personal relationships and internal politics” over pure competence when it comes to promotions.
In other words, there’s definitely a “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down” culture, and I think a lot of people struggle with that.
(And by the way, situations where someone who 99 out of 100 people would consider completely incompetent — someone basically unknown in the industry except for endless stories about their incompetence — somehow gets promoted into an absurdly high executive position, leaving entire organizations shocked and dumbfounded… those situations genuinely exist around us. The kind of unbelievably bad personnel placement that feels like it belongs in a movie scene.)
I had been told that “once you become independent, recruiting becomes difficult,” but thankfully, people have been coming together to join us. As a result, our recruitment schedule for elite core members is already fully booked through the end of December this year, to the point that we are now overflowing with interest.
Together with these outstanding colleagues, we are spending our nights discussing and updating our plans for the future of game development — in the best possible sense, with the same kind of energy and excitement as the dawn of the polygon and online era in the 1990s.
@VS_Studio_Inc
https://t.co/RcNlGqqNMF
Jim Ryan’s biggest mistake (after the over zealous live service push) was not caring about Japan IMO.
Over the last 5 years or so years Japanese games and things from Japan have become more popular than ever around the world. PlayStation, being a Japanese company, should be in a better position to capitalize more on that IMO.
My reply to someone considering starting a video game company:
The distribution of possible rewards for starting a video game company are generally not very good today. The market is well served, and gaining a foothold requires strong execution on both business and product issues, along with a substantial amount of luck. Plan to burn through seven figures with a not-great chance of making it back.
If you do go for it, some bits of advice:
Identify your customers clearly before you start. Not just a broad community, but specific people, and imagine them as you make decisions.
Initially, build the smallest, most concise game you can imagine anyone paying for. It will still take much longer than you expect.
Once something exists, hill-climb the value. Hopefully you will have some elements that clearly bring joy to people, which you can magnify. There will inevitably be tons of things that people find confusing, frustrating, or just boring that you will need to fix.
PlayStation should have listened to Shuhei Yoshida.
Instead they fired him, and now he's talking about it.
He made Stellar Blade, God of War, the original (better) Ghost of Yotei, and the original Last of Us possible by backing them.
"Jim Ryan wanted to remove me from first-party because I didn't listen to him," Yoshida said. "He asked to do some ridiculous things, and I said 'No.'"
As soon as they fired him everything turned to crap:
- Jim Ryan and Hermen Hulst took over his role.
- Bought Bungie, made Marathon.
- Ruined Last of Us series.
- Ruined Ghost of Yotei.
- Gave us Concord instead.
- And Highguard.
Firing him cost the company well over a billion dollars in loses as they acquired and funded some of the worst games of all time with huge bloated budgets.
Shuhei Yoshida says he was fired from being head of PlayStation first-party by Jim Ryan because he didn’t listen to him!
“I helped Santa Monica to make God of War, Naughty Dog to make Uncharted and The Last of Us, and Sucker Punch to make the beautiful Ghost of Tsushima. Ghost of Tsushima was one of the last games that I worked on as the president of Worldwide Studios.
But in 2019, after 11 years leading the first-party development, I was fired from the role.
Jim Ryan wanted to remove me from first-party because I didn’t listen to him. He asked to do some ridiculous things, and I said ‘No.'”
https://t.co/V11Ry0XkT6
The story of Metro 2039 is one that I long wanted to tell, but it had to wait for the reality to catch up. So now it doesn’t seem to be a dystopia or science-fiction any more. Now it is relevant to everyone.
To survive a post-apocalyptic Moscow, the rules are simple: destroy, or be destroyed...
Watch the full trailer for METRO 2039, coming this winter: https://t.co/t3fMpJWR8W | #XboxFirstLook@MetroVideoGame