Mafon Mafonov

Подписываемся на лучшую* геймдев рассылку anybody wants to check my MLP art, go to лучшую

[Mafon Mafonov @Mafon2]

@NunkiPelagus @lovedarksoul Okay, I want to join.

[Mafon Mafonov @Mafon2]

@kotopuli_zed @Suvitruf * 5 млн пройденных километров, 10,000 выпущенных пуль, 6,345 померших от ковида пришельцев.

[Mafon Mafonov @Mafon2]

@longislandviper Actually, I think, LRG is good. This doesn't hurt the retro side of their business, and they did made no-discs editions before.

[Colin Moriarty @longislandviper]

To be a fly on the wall of Limited Run Games right now.

They (and all boutique publishers, sadly) are in big, big trouble. And relying on Nintendo moving forward only goes so far; keycards say they clearly want out, too.

Massive downstream effects imminent. Rough waters ahead.

[Jason Smith @JasozzGames]

Folks, Steam does not require games to have DRM - it's entirely optional.

If a game has DRM, that is a developer/publisher decision.

[Mafon Mafonov @Mafon2]

@RetroMoviesDB Casper.

[Dom @DomsPlaying]

Finally, a feel good story in the games industry.

Devs will 'be “compensated significantly more” than called for under the original acquisition agreement & will receive “further incentives” as the game continues to be updated.'

Congrats to the Subnautica 2 team! Get that 💰

[Fawkek @fawkek_obj]

My great Blender tool PSX Retro Tools, which I have been developing and maintaining for many months, is free because:

I'm a big fan of retro PSX graphics because it makes me feel warm nostalgia

I want as many of the same enthusiasts as possible to do their work without delving into the difficult technical jungle, and it was easier for beginners

I've earned a budget from my animations, which I spend on developing this tool

[Wario64 @Wario64]

Physical disc production ending in January 2028 for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles https://t.co/aCkSNWz8tW

[Jacob Navok @JNavok]

Very sorry to hear about the game situation but a strong believer in the studio.

This old leaked Xbox sheet says "Reason behind Square Enix pulling away from IO is uncertain; is the leadership at IO difficult to manage?"

What a weird comment; it says that the consulting firm who prepped this sheet didn't bother to ask us; can't believe someone paid for this to be written.

IO always had great leadership! We loved working with them.

The issue with IO and Square Enix was the fit; you can see this in the success of the studio after the management buy-out.

In previous Square Enix threads I explained how large public companies have needs for growth; that is how you get "big" titles like a Hitman: Absolution that didn't hit its sales forecasts.

When IO Interactive was part of Square Enix it needed to do a lot more than make a hit game to cover its own costs. Its hit game needed to cover part of the cost of the marketing departments in Europe, US and Tokyo, the marketing spend, the ROIC in the project, etc.

As an independent studio, so long as they could cover their dev costs, they only needed to make enough to return on their internal costs (or whatever loans or investments they took in to make the game.)

So IO could make more reasonable bets with more reasonable expectations, and it showed with the Hitman titles they produced afterward.

Note that the issue with growth/expectations are the same for XBOX studios. Which is why studios like Arkane, if the rumors are true, would be better off independent. Unfortunately the drying up of investment in the industry now makes this one of the worst times to try to go independent.

[Mafon Mafonov @Mafon2]

@dmitriykanjo Так вот почему у меня ассоциации с ТВЦ.

[Mafon Mafonov @Mafon2]

@eXtas1stv "Correction: Today's Assembly layoffs were part of an agency-wide reorganization and were not related to Xbox ending contracts. People on the Xbox account were laid off but the agency is still continuing to work with Xbox"

[Mafon Mafonov @Mafon2]

@ShiddyPeets The Walking Dead: The Game.

[Tim Soret @timsoret]

What's about to happen at Microsoft / Xbox:
Just the predictable result of $70B spent on ONE acquisition: Activision Blizzard.

To give you some perspective, here are some games lifetime revenue:

The entire Call of Duty franchise > $35B
GTAV > $10B (with 230 million copies)
WoW > $12.8 billion
Diablo III > $2 billion
Overwatch > $1 billion

This means Xbox now needs many legendary games & entire franchises of this caliber, sold for +15 years, just to be even.

That's how hard it's going to be to turn such an acquisition into something profitable for Microsoft. That was the insanity of this deal.

Activision Blizzard sure might bring $2B to $3B of annual operating profit to Xbox, but that is still 25 to 35 years just to pay back.

Absolutely no way that this acquisition beat what $70B could have done elsewhere, especially at the dawn of AI (and Microsoft, like Apple, missed the train, failing to develop their own competitive frontier model).

So yes, party is over, now is the time for correction. It's going to be absolutely savage & devastating for the industry, for talents, for studios, AND for gamers. It's going to break trust between everybody. And it was entirely predictable.

What we see right now is why I rejected every deal since 2020, when COVID brought a sudden massive injection of cash in the gaming industry. I was certain it was poisoned money & would end up incredibly costly for studios & founders who would drink the fountain.

Many of my industry friends lost their studios, their IPs, and their teams, forever. I thought they were wiser by moving their business faster than me, but turns out it was insanely dangerous as I predicted & they now live with the kind of creative scar that I don't think I could recover from.

I still own my studio & my IP. And I will make sure to keep it that way, long after The Last Night is in your hands.

My path is longer, but ultimately sovereignty & restrain will put us in a much stronger position, will ensure we can make the absolute best games without having to convince the suits, will allow us to capture the upside ourselves to fund our next games, all while minimizing the risk of losing our life's work.

https://t.co/rvY0oSp5fa

[Mafon Mafonov @Mafon2]

Why not?

[katie 🌸 @skylerdagirl]

Ever wanted to use Windows Movie Maker 6.0 again but unsure where to get it for modern Windows?

Well, "want" no longer!

I've uploaded a setup for exactly that on The Internet Archive. Tested on Windows 7, 10, & 11, all working on each.

Get it here:
https://t.co/yEnF0sZv7n

[Radec @realradec]

Shawn Layden reflects on the PS Vita: "Instead of the Vita we should've made PSP2. For PSP2 we just wanted one more stick."

"The biggest strategic mistake was propriety memory sticks"

He also mentions how OLED and Back Touch were features that weren't worth the added cost

Source - @PSInsideFr

[Eurogamer @eurogamer]

Xbox reportedly stops signing third-party Game Pass deals https://t.co/yt33GyQqxs

[PC Gamer @pcgamer]

Open source game engine Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions https://t.co/3tyfkfkP80

[Mafon Mafonov @Mafon2]

@yano_gamedev Don't shoot the messenger, but the most common problems mentioned in the negative (and even some positive) reviews are:

• bugs, errors, crashes and hiccups;
• weak story.

Some also don't like the battle system.

On the other hand, each and everyone of them praises the art.