SYD

Simple yet deep is my gamedev philosophy.

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

@TimSweeneyEpic https://t.co/ToM3toLD8p

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

https://t.co/VCk1UkNg99

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

https://t.co/ToM3toLD8p

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

https://t.co/VCk1UkNg99

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

Such a good post, and I think it makes an essential distinction: a studio is ultimately defined by the people who built it, the talent they brought together, and the creative culture they established. You change the people, you change the culture, you change the studio.

By the time BioWare closed, it had long been a rotting carcass of its former self. The name survived, but much of what made it legendary had disappeared years ago.

[Daniel Friedman @DanFriedman81]

BioWare is not, like, a guy. BioWare closing is not like Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino getting fired or cancelled.

BioWare is a business entity that existed for 30 years. During that time people — including lead creatives who were responsible for the great games — came and went.

Some video game studios manage to maintain a culture and a sensibility around excellence and the key creatives either stick around for a long time or pass the reins to handpicked successors who share their values and preserve the culture and standards of the studios.

What has happened in the game industry over the last 15 years is that there came to be a widespread belief that the cultures that incubated excellent games were exclusionary racist, sexist, homophobic boys clubs that needed to change in order to welcome in different kinds of people.

Instead of hiring people who shared their values and sensibilities, the people at these game studios were pressured to push their workforces toward being 50% female while achieving racial equity. The staff of the studios changed dramatically, the cultures of the workplaces changed dramatically and the games changed dramatically.

The pandemic sent a lot of people into their homes to play video games, which seemed like it was going to drive an era of growth for the industry. At the same time, the new generation of gaming hardware required more detailed assets, more animation, and therefore more people to make these massive games.

So there was a huge hiring boom at the precise moment that there was an overarching focus of the demographics of the industry, which means that nearly every Western game studio’s workforce was completely transformed. Over 40% of games industry workers under the age of 25 identified as LGBT or nonbinary on recent surveys.

Additionally, some studios have had unique pressures that have driven a lot of turnover. At Rocksteady Games, for example, a lot of the people who made the Batman: Arkham trilogy were not interested in building the live service game Warner wanted, so most of the principals on those games left the studio during the production of “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.”

The studio cannot pivot back to what used to be its strength at making single player titles after that failure because all the people who are responsible for the classic games are gone. They no longer have that strength. They no longer have the institutional capacity to make great games because great games are made by great people and the great people are gone. A similar thing happened to BioWare during “Anthem.”

They couldn’t just pivot back to making great “Dragon Age” or “Mass Effect” games after the failure of “Anthem” because too many people were gone and the culture had changed. They weren’t the same studio and they weren’t a great studio anymore.

The BioWare that was shuttered today is not the studio that made “Mass Effect 2” or “Knights of the Old Republic.” That studio hasn’t existed for many years. It was just the “Dragon Age: The Veilguard” studio.

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

@FearMongrel @_DoctorDisco__ Hahahaha

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

@JNavok @chrisheatherly They fear your wrath.

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

@sparkie237 My take on this.

https://t.co/ToM3toLD8p

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

https://t.co/VCk1UkNg99

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

@nrizzolo17 @richardmantool https://t.co/ToM3toLD8p

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

https://t.co/VCk1UkNg99

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

@crusaderBAR @richardmantool https://t.co/ToM3toLD8p

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

https://t.co/VCk1UkNg99

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

@esrtweet @richardmantool https://t.co/ToM3toLD8p

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

https://t.co/VCk1UkNg99

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

@Kotaku https://t.co/ToM3toLD8p

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

https://t.co/VCk1UkNg99

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

https://t.co/VCk1UkNg99

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

This is absolutely correct.

I mostly develop turn-based tactics games and roguelikes, so I know this first hand: playtesting and balancing are intrinsically linked. You simply cannot skip that process.

I've even built automated balancing tools and run simulations to accelerate things. They're useful, but they have their limits. Nothing replaces actually playing your game.

And frankly, I don't mind. As a game developer, I genuinely enjoy playtesting my own creations. It's one of the best parts of the process.

[Kornel Kisielewicz @epyoncf]

The main problem with vibe-coded games isn't bad code or even AI art.
It's that you can generate years of implementation in days, but not years of playtesting, iteration, and design judgment.
A game can be finished in a weekend.
That doesn't mean it's been designed.

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

I think, and excuse my French, that software as a business model is dying. I genuinely mean that.

What's stopping me from feeding your plugin's description and feature list, including its paid features, to Claude or Codex and asking it to build something similar?

Sure, not everyone has the patience or skills to do that. But once enough people replicate the same functionality, sooner or later someone will release a free, open-source alternative.

I'm not saying it'll happen overnight, but I struggle to see how selling relatively simple software remains a sustainable business model in the long run.

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

One interesting side effect of the rise of AI-assisted games might be the gradual decline of generalist game curators, journalists, and influencers in favor of specialists.

As the number of releases explodes, it becomes increasingly difficult for anyone to meaningfully evaluate everything coming their way. I suspect we'll see more people specializing in particular genres, subgenres, and even very specific niches.

And I think that could benefit everyone, especially indie developers. A smaller, highly targeted audience is often far more valuable than a large, largely uninterested one.

Niche game festivals already seem to illustrate this: fewer views, perhaps, but potentially much better wishlist conversion.

[Today We Game @TodayWeGamegg]

I hate to agree with PC Gamer, but I've seen more and more generic, waste-of-space games hitting demos every day.

It's becoming more important to have a source for your demos, tooting my own horn, because while I am not playing 8,000, I quickly scan 70+ a day before reviewing the ones with potential.

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

I'm cautiously optimistic.

Discoverability is arguably one of the biggest challenges facing indie developers, and giving more games exposure sounds like a step in the right direction. My concern is whether personalization will genuinely help players discover hidden gems or simply reinforce their existing preferences and favor games that already perform well.

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

@GhostCStudio I get you but there are games in there that are not slop. This is the simple truth. But yes. It can be discouraging and discoverability remains a huge issue in the indie scene.

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

@TimSweeneyEpic Thanks. Hope you'll do it. Because I intend to win.

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

@TimSweeneyEpic https://t.co/ToM3toLD8p

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

https://t.co/VCk1UkNg99

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

https://t.co/VCk1UkNg99

[SYD @SYDGamesStudio]

@JasonsVibing @ToonHive haha