Kai Zheng

Project Lead @ HoYoverse.
Previously worked on Perfect Dark, God of War, Dead Space, Battlefield, Dante's Inferno

[Kai Zheng @devilpie]

Hi Elon, 3 questions from a game dev:
1. Business model: Assuming gen AI costs drop but don't hit zero, what business model works for "Native AI Games" making constant API calls for personalized gameplay? Subscription seems obvious, but do people really need another subscription right now?

2. Tech stack: If devs can pick any gen AI model, why choose a "closed" model like Grok over open ones like Qwen? "Free, local, and tunable" is hard to beat.

3. Discoverability: If X wants to be the go-to platform for gen AI content, how will it enable playing, creating, and sharing "Gen AI Games" natively? AI images/videos work seamlessly on X, but how would games?

[Kai Zheng @devilpie]

HoYoverse just announced a new project, along with a 30 min gameplay video and a few Job openings around the globe. Pretty exciting stuff!

[Life at HoYoverse @LifeAtHoYoverse]

Breaking news from Shadow Emergency Alliance HQ: Varsapura's first gameplay demo is available for viewing! According to an internal SEAL notice, all footage shown was captured in-engine.

The world of Varsapura, our upcoming UE5 open-world city project, is expanding — and we're looking for talented minds from around the globe to join us.

Join SEAL. Make a difference.

Watch the footage here: https://t.co/twbeT6HDfW

#HoYoverseCareers #Varsapura #UE5 #OpenWorld #GameDev #NowHiring #TechOtakuSaveTheWorld #MakeADifference

Apply here:
📍 Shanghai: https://t.co/b439mOP7wP
📍 Singapore & Los Angeles: https://t.co/qILZYOh8wH

[Life at HoYoverse @LifeAtHoYoverse]

Breaking news from Shadow Emergency Alliance HQ: Varsapura's first gameplay demo is available for viewing! According to an internal SEAL notice, all footage shown was captured in-engine.

The world of Varsapura, our upcoming UE5 open-world city project, is expanding — and we're looking for talented minds from around the globe to join us.

Join SEAL. Make a difference.

Watch the footage here: https://t.co/twbeT6HDfW

#HoYoverseCareers #Varsapura #UE5 #OpenWorld #GameDev #NowHiring #TechOtakuSaveTheWorld #MakeADifference

Apply here:
📍 Shanghai: https://t.co/b439mOP7wP
📍 Singapore & Los Angeles: https://t.co/qILZYOh8wH

[Raphael Colantonio @rafcolantonio]

To people who are puzzled about the crash of the game industry:
1/more games flood the market in the past years than ever before
2/budgets were bigger than ever before
3/gamers are fatigued of sequels and spin offs and game as a service
The market is correcting, we need to adapt

[Kai Zheng @devilpie]

Hi game dev friends, unless you plan to retire in the next 12 months, this awesome presentation is a must read, regardless of your job title or game genre. #gamedev #gamedesign

[thomasmahler @thomasmahler]

It is absolutely not a surprise to me that a lot of AAA studios have been struggling lately and my prediction is that it won’t really get better any time soon.

I know it sounds absurd, but most of the games studios out there that hit it big were at one point just a small group of passionate folks that wanted to make games together. In a lot of cases they were just friends. And if they were lucky, they found out in the process that they actually make a great team together.

Then the games they created struck a chord and now they scale up and become a massive studio. And then lots of other folks come in and demand this and that and unknowingly change the culture and the approach and then we suddenly wonder what happened to this or that great studio that always delivered in the past once they’re not delivering the same quality products anymore, even though EVERYTHING changed in their approach to making games.

I’ve compared companies to bands in the past because I think that analogy helps a lot of people understand that we’re really dealing with the same issues here:

Take the Beatles, they become successful, but now their record company tells John, Paul, Ringo and George how they should write their songs and - by the way - now they should also hire Lisa, Steward, Shane and Mary and have them be part of the songwriting team so they can produce more stuff and of course these new folks should have the same say because otherwise we might just face diversity issues - does anybody really think we would’ve gotten the same output they had by doing it this way?

No, of course not. And it’s no different for games studios or any other group of talented people that produce art together.

You have to keep that magic alive that made it all work in the first place. We’re dealing with humans here and all too often the industry seems to forget that.

[Very AFK @Cromwelp]

It’s really depressing seeing people figure out China as a viable gaming region in realtime. Over 750 million gamers (more than the entire US population) with 20% YOY growth. And people are asking how a game based on the most popular national legend of all time is beating records? Are we really that stupid?

[AYI @ayi_sanchez]

No more excuses, you can now use one of the best engines ever :)

https://t.co/MBnnHsE2fH

[Life at HoYoverse @LifeAtHoYoverse]

[1/2] Are you an Engineer, Community Manager, Legal Counsel, Artist, or Designer? We might have the perfect opportunity for you.

HoYoverse is hiring in Singapore, the US, Canada, Japan, and South Korea! 60+ open roles!🌟

More info➡️https://t.co/vOi9h1c2Eo

#HoYoverse #Hiring

[Raphael Colantonio @rafcolantonio]

We’ll reveal a bit more about our next game in a few days… Fans of the previous 1st person games I was involved with (Dishonored and Prey) will be happy.

[Shinobi602 @shinobi602]

Sea of Thieves was the best selling game on PlayStation in the US and Europe in May 2024

➡️ https://t.co/0aUEGDYc2q

#SeaofThieves #PS5

[Ian Miller @illermil]

It's been along time...

Checkout the reveal trailer for the game I'm currently working on. Gears 😉

https://t.co/HUAjtTiZFY

#xbox #Gears #gaming #gearsofwar @CoalitionGears

[Kai Zheng @devilpie]

Glad to see my previous project alive and well. Congrats to the team! I can't wait to get my hands on it (hopefully soon).

[TheInitiative @TheInitiative]

Check out the brand-new trailer for our reboot of the classic secret agent series #PerfectDark, featuring a first in-game look at Joanna Dark’s mission in near-future Cairo. https://t.co/yx3DB97uXt

[Christofer Sundberg 🧨💦⚔️ @CHSundberg]

The Mad Max game team deserves so much more credit than they have been given. Everyone involved in that project bears the scars of a hell of a project. To hear that the ones who were supposed to support us, just shit all over the work of an awesome team pisses me off.

[johnjohanas @johnjohanas]

Absolute sadness to see this in writing.

It’s been a week since the news but emotionally, an eternity.

Even though it’s a small final update, we can look forward to the physical version being released.

To everyone who supported us, you are all rockstars.

[Kai Zheng @devilpie]

@essell2 @Monsterclip_JM @quildogg @generalvivi @tostspender @DanaENight So cool to see the video finally coming out. I'm gonna save it for my own reference in the future :) Thanks!

[Jeannette Lee @SaltQueenJean]

Howdy game dev friends - we have a really special opportunity @insomniacgames for someone. The Production (PM) team is looking for another Project Director to join us! We are a digital first studio, so remote folks are fully supported!

https://t.co/uM6VEwidVS

[Kai Zheng @devilpie]

Insightful game design talks about an awesome game by an outstanding individual.

[thomasmahler @thomasmahler]

I'm constantly being asked why we generally don't hire Junior's at Moon. I will try to explain why:

It just all boils down to efficiency. Scaling a team from 20 to 40 heads doesn't mean your studio is now twice as efficient. The real number there is probably just a 20-40% increase in productivity.

There are overhead costs for every single new person we introduce. Which means that we need to hire people that can carry their own weight from day 1.

We had plenty of opportunities before to accept investments to grow Moon to a ridiculous size, work on multiple projects at once, etc., but we declined those offers every single time since to us, Quality matters more than Quantity.

We named Moon Studios after JFK's speech, specifically the "We do it not because it's easy, but because it's hard" part. I always found that bit inspiring since it speaks to the satisfaction one gets from overcoming incredible challenge.

We are absolutely okay with not betting on short-term investments, instead we always bet on our long-term vision.

From Day1, we always wanted to be a smaller, elite team of incredibly talented individuals instead of becoming yet another bloated AAA studio.

At Moon, we don't just make products: Our goal has to be to work on projects that our team members can be proud of for the rest of their lives.

Too often these days game development is just about annual revenues and other misguided short term ideas. Instead, the focus should be on quality and building a brand that people trust. Because that is how you build a company that people love and support.

[thomasmahler @thomasmahler]

Oh no, I awoke some console warriors with one of my replies.

Folks, I never cared what box you have under your TV and I don't care what 'side' you're on.

I agree with Phil that all games should ideally be on all platforms.

Imagine we would've had this craziness with films: "Oh, you can play this DVD on a Sony DVD Player, but this other one only works on some other brand!"

It would've been madness. And the same is true for Xbox and PlayStation.

Here's a little tidbit for you: Under the hood, those boxes are pretty much identical. So who cares? Just let people enjoy good games!

And yes, I will happily ban all obnoxious platform warriors that try to use me in these senseless arguments about which brand is cooler.