[HN Gopher] Blizzard cofounder launches new gaming endeavor Drea...
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Blizzard cofounder launches new gaming endeavor Dreamhaven
Author : raimue
Score : 325 points
Date : 2020-09-23 13:20 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (venturebeat.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (venturebeat.com)
| rurounijones wrote:
| The name "Dreamhaven" is very clever.
|
| * To players it sounds like a typical company stuido name. Quite
| nice
|
| * To current and ex-blizzard staff it is a beacon call. "Come and
| dream again here"
|
| * To Activision management it seems like a bit of an insult in
| that Blizzard was no longer a place where you could dream.
|
| But maybe I am reading too much into it.
| tus88 wrote:
| Amy word on what the new games will be?
| zemo wrote:
| I hope they replicate the high level of product quality that
| Blizzard was shipping from 1995 to 2012 but not the thing where
| they're infamous in the game industry for underpaying people.
| __s wrote:
| Morhaime showed up to HomeStory Cup (StarCraft II tournament) in
| 2019, & took part in their poker night:
| https://www.twitch.tv/videos/511760157?t=9h20m7s
|
| It lets you see him relaxing as a pretty chill guy. He really
| cares about creating good games
|
| One of the insightful remarks he made was that StarCraft was
| easier to balance than WarCraft because it had so much more
| asymmetry
| chrisco255 wrote:
| I hope at least one of these studios is working on an RTS.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Do you happen to know roughly where he comes in, or where the
| best parts are? I am scrubbing but it's so long!
| __s wrote:
| 9h20m7s. For the most part he's being a polite poker player
| by keeping his mouth shut. Tells a small story at 11h05m30s
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Thank you!
| lorthemar wrote:
| I'm really glad to hear this. Morhaime, Bowder, and all deserve
| to create games that they feel attached to. Just grab Samwise and
| Metzen so we can go back to the 2000s :)
| saberience wrote:
| As an ex-Blizzard engineer (left last year shortly after the 2019
| layoffs) this makes so much sense to me. I saw Mike a few weeks
| before he announced his resignation and it was so obvious to me
| that he was super sad about leaving. Rumors were rife at the time
| that he was being "forced out" by Activision and I think that
| ended up being the case.
|
| Mike left Blizzard some months before the layoffs were announced
| and the general conclusion was that Mike was told by Bobby Kotick
| that he had to do the layoffs or leave Blizzard, and hence Mike
| ended up resigning.
|
| His resignation email said all the same stuff like "Mike wanting
| to spend more time with family" etc etc. But now it's fairly
| clear that was all crap, he still wanted to run a games company,
| he just wanted to be free from Activision and their general heavy
| handed management and manipulation of Blizzard.
| jayd16 wrote:
| >he just wanted to be free from Activision and their general
| heavy handed management and manipulation of Blizzard.
|
| I'm curious to hear some anecdotes about this. I've worked at
| an Activision studio and the central management mostly stayed
| out of the way. There were meetings and green lights and
| deadlines but it seemed pretty normal. We didn't see a lot of
| "corporate says X so change everything!" From my experience the
| studios have a lot of autonomy and Blizzard is even more in
| control of its own destiny.
| foota wrote:
| Maybe your studio looked more like activision wanted it to?
| phaus wrote:
| Its just too much of a coincidence to me that at the same
| time they got acquired by a Bobby Kotick run company they
| started churning out games that, while not completely
| terrible, when compared to their older efforts were
| uninspired, generic trash made by money hungry assholes.
|
| It never felt like something Blizzard would do, it felt like
| exactly what Activision would do. Maybe too many of the key
| people had left at that point. It happens to a lot of
| companies when they get big.
| swivelmaster wrote:
| Blizzard's way of developing games isn't (or wasn't) the same
| as any other Activision studio. Blizzard was always "find the
| fun, take as long as you want, cancel a game if it's not top
| tier quality."
|
| Most of Activision's portfolio is franchises with a set
| amount of change per iteration.
|
| I can imagine this mismatch in style causing issues.
| pvg wrote:
| How big was the studio compared to Blizzard? Blizzard is an
| Activision strategic asset, their name is on the door, etc.
| It stands to reason the relationship might be quite different
| compared even to something like 'important studio that does
| important releases of an important franchise'.
| Thaxll wrote:
| I think Blizzard is expensive in terms of headcount. In 2012
| apparently they had 4700 employees.
| Dirlewanger wrote:
| The Blizzard of the past decade is nothing like the Blizzard
| of the 90s/2000s. They're a husk of their former selves.
| summerlight wrote:
| Or it might be the case where your reporting lines were able
| to do their job and keep you away from all the upper-level
| politics? I also used to work on online game companies and
| thought that we were given lots of autonomy like you until I
| found our director and producer fiercely fighting back
| against all the pressures coming from corporate and sales
| guys in executive level meetings. Because of this experience,
| I wouldn't take those autonomy for granted; Mike probably
| also had done the same thing more than 10 years and given up
| for some reasons.
| munificent wrote:
| _> Morhaime will act as CEO of Dreamhaven as a whole, which will
| be based in Irvine, California. It marks his first major move in
| the games industry since stepping down as Blizzard president in
| 2018 and leaving the company he helped create in 2019._
|
| Sounds like the typical expiration date for a non-compete, so I
| assume they've been planning to do this for some time.
|
| Let's hope it works out. In this era of constant consolidation,
| I'm always happy to see new companies spring up.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| It's in California, so non-competes were probably not the
| issue.
| justinlloyd wrote:
| A "non-compete" in California is very enforceable. Though not
| in the way that most people think of non-competes. "I will
| pay you $X, at $Y per month to not do that thing for the next
| $Z months. If you decide to do that thing before $Z months
| have elapsed, the money dries up. Also, the amount of money
| you receive each month increases with each passing month."
|
| I did a deal with my small company in 2008 where I sold IP. I
| personally agreed not to go and recreate that IP for at least
| 5 years, and for that, I would receive revenue share from the
| current IP.
|
| I also did a deal with a different small company I created at
| the tail end of 2016 whereby I received a cash payout with an
| attached clause of being sued into oblivion should I a)
| attempt to work with the client in some capacity for a period
| of time or b) talk about client so as not to jeopardise the
| in-place contracts. The company that acquired my company was
| interested in the contracts that my company had with a
| client, not the IP so much.
|
| Non-competes in California are very enforceable, but they
| usually come with money attached and are not used to bludgeon
| a Sandwich Artist from earning a living at the deli across
| the road.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| In CA, non-competes are still valid against executives,
| founders, and any employee with a material share of the
| ownership of the company (for a multi-billion dollar publicly
| traded company, a material share can be a fraction of a % of
| the total value of the company).
| jimbob45 wrote:
| https://imgur.com/XwyReNw
|
| The above is a fairly interesting flowchart detailing where all
| of the core employees moved on to after leaving Blizzard. Some
| have met success, most have folded.
|
| To me, the only employee that ever mattered was Chris Metzen. He
| was the one who developed the core of all of their stories and
| personally approved every quest in WoW. If you're going to try to
| get players to emotionally connect to characters and story arcs,
| I would think that the writer would be the best place to figure
| out how.
| moomin wrote:
| Disagree, the greatest story in the world won't save bad
| mechanics. I mean, Dark Souls has a lore people obsess about,
| but there's plenty of people with an emotional attachment to it
| with absolutely no clue what's going on.
| mattmanser wrote:
| A good example is Elex. It's got a good world/story, fun
| factions, it looks pretty good, exploration is interesting
| and fun. But the combat is horrific. Balancing is terrible.
| You'll find high level enemies right next to low level ones.
| The actual gameplay is so bad.
|
| And you'll see it repeated over and over on the reviews on
| the steam page.
|
| Some people claim it gets better if you stick with it, and I
| did because I was playing it over a holiday. My experience
| was they're wrong, it never gets better.
| BossingAround wrote:
| > If you're going to try to get players to emotionally connect
| to characters and story arcs, I would think that the writer
| would be the best place to figure out how.
|
| I was fairly attached to WoW while never paying much attention
| to the superficial stories and quests. I did at first, but it
| honestly wasn't great from what I remember (the first WoW), and
| so I just focused on the gameplay and team work rather than the
| story.
|
| Personally, I read books for the story, and play games for the
| mechanics.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| I would just play WoW focusing on similar things to you and
| then watch a youtube video for the lore :)
| zacharycohn wrote:
| The name text in that image is too small to read..
| fareesh wrote:
| Open the image in a new tab then you can zoom-in as much as
| you want. imgur is not showing the full zoomed in version
| xenihn wrote:
| How involved was he with Diablo 2? I don't know specifics, but
| I was disappointed by everything in Diablo 3, including the
| story, and I think that's due to the lack of the Blizzard North
| people.
| markbnine wrote:
| Me thinks they used the Fantasy Place Name generator. . .
| https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/fantasy-town-names.php
| onychomys wrote:
| I just hope they don't hire a bunch of lawyers and go after
| Dreamhaven Books in Minneapolis: http://dreamhavenbooks.com
| bovermyer wrote:
| Unrelated anecdote - the person that develops that site is part
| of a community of generator website creators.
|
| We build all kinds of fun tools like that.
| swarnie_ wrote:
| Out of interest is the reddit username generator written by
| someone in that community?
|
| (https://perchance.org/reddit-username)
|
| Its my go-to place when i need another 30-40 accounts.
| debaserab2 wrote:
| Why do you need 30-40 reddit accounts?
| swarnie_ wrote:
| I like messing about with bots and auto-posting.
|
| Lots of subreddits have restrictions based on karma and
| account age. Mass creating in batches seemed the easiest
| answer.
| bovermyer wrote:
| That generator, no. But the website it's made on, yes.
| dmit wrote:
| Do you have a webring? :)
| bovermyer wrote:
| No webring as of yet, but I do run a website that tries to
| index the members: https://rpggen.dev
| mk_chan wrote:
| I love that website! I use it all the time to get some
| inspiration for my hobby project names
| Sawamara wrote:
| I have respect for Dustin Bowder's vision with regards to Diablo
| III, however disastrous it proved to be with the game's hardcore
| fans. It misunderstood what the franchise was about and
| fundamentally went against some of its core "values", but at the
| end of the day, pre-nerf Diablo III at Inferno was one of the
| most heavy skill-based kite-based arpg to date. You had to be
| there.
| bpicolo wrote:
| > pre-nerf Diablo III at Inferno was one of the most heavy
| skill-based kite-based arpg to date
|
| Fun content, but anywhere past Act 2 was dramatically
| overtuned. Ultimately you don't want the only reasonable path
| to be cheese strats.
| bob1029 wrote:
| To me this hints at the core of why small/niche games will
| always have a place. Diablo 3 and any other mass-consumption
| AAA title is going to have to compromise some of the edginess
| to gain wider acceptance. I personally thought the D3 launch
| experience into the first few months was incredible. That said,
| I can see how it upset some of the fan base for various
| reasons.
|
| Overwatch is another example where you can see this battle
| unfold. There are now 2 completely separate competitive ranked
| queue options with different rule sets in order to bridge this
| gap in gameplay expectations. I personally prefer the
| unconstrained queue where more dynamic teamwork is required,
| but a lot of players prefer the role queue where they can
| expect certain meta styles. I think both are perfectly valid
| ways to play the game, and this approach might be a good
| example of ways we might be able to handle these varying
| expectations in a more general way.
| echohack5 wrote:
| I believe you mean Jay Wilson? Dustin Browder's involvement
| with Diablo 3 was only from a Strike Team perspective. Browder
| is more known for his work on Starcraft 2.
| VRay wrote:
| Man, I hope so
|
| Diablo 3's hardest difficulty at launch was a nightmare. You
| had to move around with Ninja Gaiden/Dark Souls-level
| precision in a game engine that just was _not_ designed to
| give you that much precise control
|
| So often I'd be trying to run out of something, accidentally
| click a monster instead of a patch of open ground, and my guy
| would stop to turn around and shoot. It was horrible
|
| Not only was it un-fun to play, it actively made me feel bad.
| "Hey, game's over, you're just not good enough to play any
| more Diablo. Get out."
| vsareto wrote:
| > You had to move around with Ninja Gaiden/Dark Souls-level
| precision in a game engine that just was _not_ designed to
| give you that much precise control
|
| This is the direction Path of Exile has gone and frankly it
| sucks. It more closely resembles bullet-hell games than old
| school Diablo 2.
| jug wrote:
| Interesting! I think Morhaime retained a lot of the "Blizzard
| spirit" that many feel has been lost in recent years. In a sense,
| Morhaime leaving Blizzard felt like the transition to the new
| "Activision-Blizzard" model was now finally complete. Something
| more than Morhaime alone left Blizzard that day and it felt
| terrible to watch Blizzcon and not really see a happy man.
|
| It was apparently Morhaime who gave us Diablo 3 fans the scraps
| of the cancelled second expansion as free content update as pure
| fan service. Without these and the concepts they introduced,
| Diablo 3 would have lacked major end game features essential for
| its longevity like Greater Rifts and Kanai's Cube. He truly
| understood the importance of gamer relations and from others it
| sounds like he has a big gaming heart.
| [deleted]
| jagger27 wrote:
| Those are some pretty big names. The gaming industry has shown
| over and over how smaller companies fight toe-to-toe with giant
| companies if they produce games that people actually want to
| play. I wish them the best. Everyone loves an underdog.
| hobofan wrote:
| Announcements of new companies like this are also the reason
| why I'm not as negative as some other people about the Bethesda
| acquisition. In the short term it might cause some more
| consolidation, but the whole gaming market is still growing and
| new independent studios are opening up, which counteracts the
| consolidation to some degree.
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| The problem with the Bethesda thing is that I won't get to
| play Doom Reboot 3 on PS5. I don't care about Xbox, heck I
| can't even differentiate the new model from the older one due
| to the confusing names.
| asou wrote:
| If you have a decent gaming PC Microsoft will still take
| care of you.
| mewse-hn wrote:
| As a veteran WoW player now playing classic, I hope this play
| works out. There was a ~40 min youtube video released a couple
| months ago that details the many ways contemporary Blizzard has
| lost their soul:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G6oRuu9tLg
|
| The short version is Blizzard is a shell of their former glory,
| and they are making decisions based on cash and appeasement of
| the Chinese govt. Most of you probably remember the Diablo:
| Immortal reception (Chinese mobile game presented as a keynote at
| the American, PC-playing blizzcon fan convention).
|
| I deeply hope Morhaime is able to recapture the lightning in a
| bottle that existed at old Blizzard, and this doesn't end up as
| another Hellgate: London fiasco.
| Snild wrote:
| I loved Hellgate: London. The game definitely lacked polish
| (ran out of money, I assume), but the general gameplay feel was
| great.
| jug wrote:
| I agree and the timing was pretty poor for that game. Windows
| Vista was JUST out the door and the graphics card drivers
| were downright terrible at the time, often crashing. Reason
| being Vista used a completely new driver model (WDDM).
|
| I recall HGL also had some unfortunate memory leak issues.
|
| In general I think that game was largely hamstrung by
| performance issues for one reason or another.
|
| The idea of a FPS Action RPG like that wa as simple as it was
| brilliant. I've wondered why it hadn't been done before and
| still hasn't quite been done again. Games like Dark Souls
| exist but I don't think they're quite the same. Rumor is
| Diablo IV was going to go there but Blizzard later changed
| their mind, rather opting for a traditional isometric view. I
| think they lose a lot of immersion doing that. Imagine
| sneaking through damp, dark cellars and have demons lurk
| around the corners, and everything built upon a solid
| itemization system and replayability with randomized maps.
| md5person wrote:
| > "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G6oRuu9tLg"
|
| Content aside - I feel like this video is terribly edited,
| scripted and produced. It's impossible to follow - thanks to
| all the shallow jokes, weird cuts and messy presentation.
| Almost like it's intentionally made for people without an
| attention span...
| dgellow wrote:
| A _37 minutes_ video for people without an attention span?
| RubberMullet wrote:
| Watch this video instead:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPFtUiTncy8
|
| Seth Schiesel, an NYT vet and old school WoW player
| interviews Morhaime during April of this year.
| dang wrote:
| Url changed from https://www.ign.com/articles/mike-morhaime-new-
| company-blizz..., which points to this.
|
| There's also https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-
| games/2020/09/23/mike-m....
| duxup wrote:
| Hopefully this works out.
|
| We see a lot of "core member of great thing founds own thing" and
| you really want to see them succeed but having an organization
| succeed takes a a lot of people with lots of different skills.
| I'm not convinced that any given jumble of highly talented folks
| actually produce something if we somehow ran a but of iterations
| of "jumble of highly talented folks".
|
| I've heard plenty of stories of such folks going their own way to
| be stopped by basic business type problems like project
| management, just managing people, maintaining focus, raising
| money and keeping investors happy, etc.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| Mike Morhaime was the president of blizzard for quite a while.
| He should be very familiar with the management side of things.
| username90 wrote:
| He founded Blizzard, he can probably do it again. I think he is
| the last of the early Blizzard people to go off on his own, so
| we'll see if the success was a fluke or if there is something
| special about him.
| duxup wrote:
| I really hope so. It just takes a lot of pieces to really
| make a thing.
| dang wrote:
| Another original source on this appears to be
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/09/23/mike-m....
| manas1 wrote:
| sdcsvx
| Danieru wrote:
| In the interest of driving conversation away from nostalgia-ism
| let's talk about the economics of a high-tier game career.
|
| Morhaime has now left the company he helped found, and one he
| sold off eons ago. Now stepping into a new vessel he gets to sell
| a bit less equity this time around and bring along the cream of
| his leadership team. No doubt he funded the initial paperwork out
| of his own pocket, but soon accepted one of the flood of
| investment offers.
|
| It is an old play book yet no one talks about it when the play
| succeeds. Remember that falling out Martin O'Donnell had with
| Bungie? Did you notice how Martin moved on to found his own
| studio, one which successfully shipped a non-trivial game? Now
| not only does he get all the creative control he wanted, but even
| all of the financial upside.
|
| Video games are so successful even those people getting pushed
| out of the "golden castle" have the skills and connections to
| build their own castle. No doubt this would change if games were
| not such a quick growing industry, but we've maintained that
| growth for a couple decades now.
|
| This I think leads back to a fan favorite topic: unionization in
| games. For the opposite reason one might think: those successful
| enough to be "too important too lose" for studios are more likely
| setup new studios before they ever spend their political capital
| on unionization. This leaves the suits, who by definition are
| incapable of setting a studio, and the "bulk of the creative
| team".
|
| Hollywood could unionize because no matter how famous no star
| alone is capable of walking out the door to make a new studio.
| Thus the stars and more importantly directors saw the studios as
| overlords, not future peers. Games does not have that, and it is
| a core problem the games unionization movement needs to figure
| out a solution to.
| rmah wrote:
| Well... first, the "studio system" where actors were tied to a
| single studio by contract hasn't held sway for half a century.
| Talent (stars and especially directors) have been founding
| their own studios off and on for a century now.
|
| Examples: United Artists was started in 1919 by W.D. Griffith,
| Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. Or
| Mercury Theater, founded by Orson Wells and Houseman.
| Dreamworks, founded by Spielberg (and Katzenberg and Geffen).
| And there are dozens of production companies owned by actors
| and directors. Many of these firms eventually get acquired by
| major studios.
|
| While it may be easier to find success with an indie game than
| an indie film, I don't see why one is easier than the other
| assuming the team has the appropriate skillset. The parallels
| between film making and game making are quite substantial, IMO.
| Both the business and process.
| toby wrote:
| From Wikipedia: "Many high-profile actors refused to join SAG
| initially. This changed when the producers made an agreement
| amongst themselves not to bid competitively for talent."
|
| Tech companies have tried this in the past, now this would
| typically be met with an antitrust suit rather than creating a
| guild. Not sure which is preferable.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| With an antitrust suit: grievances are addressed years after
| the fact, if at all, with little meaningful compensation for
| the aggrieved employees.
|
| With a guild/union: grievances are addressed immediately or
| before they occur (depending on the structure of work
| contracts), minimizing the economic suffering to employees.
|
| Generally, from the perspective of employees, guilds/unions
| are better.
|
| EDIT: a "guild" is a union for independent contractors.
| smogcutter wrote:
| For a similar reason, it seems to me that unionizing is the
| answer for uber/lyft drivers to get protections they want
| without being tied down as permanent employees.
|
| The list of reasons unionizing drivers would be difficult
| to impossible is long and obvious, but the outcome would
| surely be better than some hamfisted state law.
|
| Also, right now uber is framing the issue as drivers vs the
| state. A union push would make it uber vs the drivers, much
| harder to spin.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Technically, non-wage workers (i.e., independent
| contractors), would form a guild rather than a union.
| walshemj wrote:
| Are sure about that you can call your self a guild or the
| BMA but you are a union.
| naravara wrote:
| > The list of reasons unionizing drivers would be
| difficult to impossible is long and obvious, but the
| outcome would surely be better than some hamfisted state
| law.
|
| The state could mandate sectoral representation for all
| the drivers, functionally requiring unionization. That
| way the nitty gritty details are still just contract
| negotiations between the union and the gig economy
| companies, but there isn't too much space for overly
| broad or stifling regulatory requirements (from the State
| anyway, between the lawyers on all sides of the issue is
| a different story).
| thisalreadyiss wrote:
| Well, the physical engineering world already has an alternative
| to unionization: contracting firms.
|
| The best mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineers in the
| world work for big engineering firms (and make mega bucks).
|
| We have a few relatively small contracting firms in software
| right now, but there is no reason why we could not have large
| Software Engineering firms that can handle entire design and
| engineering for any game studio far better and more efficiently
| than the studios could ever do themselves.
|
| For example, if the top 1000 game designers and developers
| started their own firm, then I imagine every studio would be
| forced to use them at whatever price for competitive reasons.
|
| Are you a VC? Invest in that. Insta-monopoly. Top talent
| (especially in bulk) is very much the most difficult thing to
| replicate in any market.
| asdasfasdfasdf wrote:
| oy, if I had a dollar for every creative team that got left
| behind... I'd start my own studio.
| brundolf wrote:
| You're missing a big factor: money. It takes significant
| capital to start your own studio. In games, _only_ the founders
| are making real cash, and only if they 're actually successful
| the first time around. Programmers make significantly less than
| they do in other fields, for example.
|
| And then in terms of reputation, _very few_ people in games -
| usually designers - are household names. I 'm talking maybe a
| dozen or two people in the entire industry (vs hundreds in
| film). And I would assume that it's very hard to get outside
| investment without that star power.
|
| Finally, games is an enormously crowded space. Thanks in part
| to the massive influx of indies, improvement in tools, etc
| there's an insane amount of oversaturation on platforms like
| Steam. This means that thousands of high-quality games go
| completely unnoticed and die a quiet death. Unless you have
| that star power to get people paying attention in the first
| place, or you win the social media lottery and go viral, you're
| probably toast.
|
| So yes, the market is huge and growing, but despite that it
| remains a really brutal industry to be in. Big studios know
| this, and they take full advantage of it, knowing that their
| employees would likely have it even worse if they left.
| asou wrote:
| >This means that thousands of high-quality games go
| completely unnoticed and die a quiet death. Unless you have
| that star power to get people paying attention in the first
| place, or you win the social media lottery and go viral,
| you're probably toast.
|
| Even star power isn't enough persay
|
| https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2020/09/17/disintegrati.
| ..
|
| Games can take thousands of people to make, from coding to
| marketing. Maybe one or two will be able to start a new
| company with any success. I do really like John Romero's
| smaller projects though.
|
| Not everything needs to be a AAA game
| fxtentacle wrote:
| They must have seriously screwed up marketing. I loved
| Halo, Portal, Titanfall. I liked those games on Facebook. I
| read the usual game magazine websites. I watch SciFi let's
| plays on YouTube. This game looks like I'll very much enjoy
| it, yet I had literally never heard of it until you
| mentioned it.
|
| How come with all this data collection and targeted
| advertisement, I never saw an ad for this? Google and
| Facebook should know that I'm interested in a Halo-like new
| game.
| pvg wrote:
| Like the article mentioned, it had terrible reviews. It's
| a game in which the 'new and fun hybrid gameplay'
| ambition doesn't match the reality. They didn't screw up
| the marketing (lots of 'iterative' or 'persistent'
| shooters have become massive hits almost organically),
| they screwed up the game.
|
| I don't think the premise upthread - that there are
| zillions of high quality games that nobody notices is
| really true. Yes, it's a crowded market but it's also
| absolutely mobbed with people looking for the next big or
| interesting thing - to play, to stream, to make a catchy
| review of, etc.
| [deleted]
| echelon wrote:
| What can fix this?
|
| If everyone adopts the same game engines and assets become
| cheap and easy to produce, could there be a renaissance of
| small gaming studios that are sustainable and pay competitive
| wages?
|
| What's the blocker? Why aren't things better?
| manfredo wrote:
| There's no way to "fix" the laws of supply and demand.
| Making games is a lot of people's dream jobs. People are
| willing to take a pay cut and worker longer hours to have a
| job in the game development industry. Same reason why you
| have aspiring actors working tables to make ends meet.
| RadiateMate wrote:
| Platforms like Steam giving 20% to everyone.
| WarChortle wrote:
| Actors make their own production studios all the time.
|
| That's why Hollywood unionized the way it did. A specific
| studio couldn't unionize because they would just get dissolved
| and reformed under a new LLC.
|
| No actor or famous game designer is capable of creating a AAA
| movie/game by themselves. They need a lot of people to work on
| it.
|
| The only difference is Hollywood the entire pool of workers
| unionized they have no choice but to hire a union worker.
|
| Game designers/programmers need to follow the same formula. The
| two industries have exactly the same problem, Hollywood workers
| have been around long enough to figure out the solution.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > A specific studio couldn't unionize because they would just
| get dissolved and reformed under a new LLC.
|
| If your workers are members of a union... how does closing
| the company and starting a new one help? They're still in the
| union.
| username90 wrote:
| US unions are tied to a company so shutting the company
| shuts the union. There are some old exceptions like in the
| movie industry that were grandfathered in but you can't
| create new such unions.
| walshemj wrote:
| Are you sure? which law is that?
|
| The CWA is/has tried recruiting in tech
| username90 wrote:
| Outlawed might be a bad word, but there are no
| protections for them and things like sympathy strikes are
| illegal.
|
| > The CWA is/has tried recruiting in tech
|
| I don't see a way for individuals to join, just how to
| get them to help you organize a company union.
|
| https://cwa-union.org/join-union
|
| Compare to Swedens engineering union which you just have
| to fill in this form for and then you are a member:
|
| https://www.sverigesingenjorer.se/ansokan/
| claudeganon wrote:
| Yes, the NRLA and Taft-Hartley acts were structured to
| prevent the growth of unions and sector-wide labor
| organizing by stating that unions can only be formed on
| the basis of company-level votes.
| speeder wrote:
| That was exactly his point.
|
| In USA (I dunno where you are from), sometimes the union is
| company-specific, as in: the union forms inside the company
| and has only that company workers and has some say on the
| company management.
|
| In Holywood that didn't work, because movies often have a
| one-off company created just for them (it still works this
| way).
|
| So the actors and whatnot created non-company unions, so
| this way they get what you just said (ie: company
| dissolves, but employees are still in a union, since the
| union wasn't tied to a company).
| germinalphrase wrote:
| As a former member of Local 600 - saying "the entire pool of
| workers unionized" is inaccurate. A significant number of
| feature films are produced ever year with non-union crews.
| They may or may not know what they're doing, but they exist.
| I worked on them prior to joining the Cinematographer's Guild
| (you have to start somewhere).
|
| Also of note, the various film industry unions were largely
| created back in the day when unionization was generally more
| popular in society. They have remained strong - like
| steelworkers - because the protections are worth joining,
| apprenticeship and training is available/valuable, and the
| working conditions are often potentially hazardous. People
| Don't realize, but industry workers get injured/die every
| year on movie sets (though it is better than it used to be).
| phaus wrote:
| >People Don't realize, but industry workers get injured/die
| every year on movie sets (though it is better than it used
| to be).
|
| Is this largely due to construction projects like sets and
| the use of heavy equipment, or is it more from stunts or
| something else I haven't considered?
|
| Also, since you're an insider, when they build sets and
| props and stuff, do they still have to follow OSHA
| requirements and get safety inspections and stuff?
| sprafa wrote:
| Fatigue, carrying heavy equipment (film lights, rain
| equipment, set construction all involve you know, huge
| amounts of physical stuff being moved), equipment failure
| during a FX such as an explosion or a car crash.
|
| Deaths and permanent injury were actually horrifyingly
| common from what I know of very early film industry.
| Unionisation, at least of stuntmen, has probably saved a
| couple of hundred lives, both literally and in avoiding
| permanent injury.
|
| Simple exhaustion can do it. There was a famous case
| about a woman who got hit by some kind of railcar being
| used in production a few years ago. She died. There was a
| documentary made about it called "who needs sleep".
| Conditions can be really really difficult sometimes,
| because a stars time Immensely valuable, while crew time
| is cheaper. So a star is ie 10k p hour While keeping crew
| around awake for 12/16 hours a day to shoot when they're
| finished makeup / shooting another scene somewhere else
| is often more economical to keep the crew awake for too
| long. You have to finish "the day" since the star is
| payed per diem, afaik. I don't work in Hollywood but film
| and commercials.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Q1: all of the above. Moving vehicles and equipment.
| Stunts/practical effects/etc. High power lighting and
| electrical cords strung everywhere. Tripping hazards.
| Falling hazards. Oh, and as a rule, never get in the
| helicopter.
|
| Q2: I don't know. I imagine it depends on how much is
| being built and how controlled the environment would be.
|
| Edit: I should also stress the impact of sleep
| deprivation on accidents and mistakes. Filmmaking hours
| are often pegged at 12+ as a standard day, and a well
| financed production won't bat an eye at paying the
| penalties to push a crew.
| walshemj wrote:
| I was talking with some one in Prospect/BECTU (IATSE) and
| she mentioned her first job was on Coronation Street
| helping the older actors onto set and making sure they
| didn't trip over any thing.
|
| I was/am on the same committe (SOC)
| username90 wrote:
| > They have remained strong - like steelworkers - because
| the protections are worth joining
|
| Do you think they would join if they weren't forced to
| join? If so why should they be forced to join? This kind of
| arrangement is illegal in Europe so it isn't required to
| get high union participation.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| They aren't forced to join.
|
| I'm going to be a bit handwavy here:
|
| generally - crew members do not work for a specific
| company, so the problem of a "Union only" job is perhaps
| somewhat different. Crew members are all functionally
| contractors for that one specific production. There are
| no long term contractual obligations. After that
| production is over, they have to hunt around for their
| next gig which reinforces the relationship based job
| economy of Hollywood labor.
|
| When a production is kicking, off department heads will
| be hired (for instance, a Director is Photography) and
| they will hire the crew members below them in the
| hierarchy. Many department heads will have their regular
| group of people they call, and it can be difficult to
| break into the network. Most people who join a union have
| experience, training, references, etc which help build
| those connections.
|
| Again, non-union film production happens all the time.
| The benefits of joining one of the unions are positive
| enough that most people do, but You don't have to be in
| Local 600 to shoot a movie.
| conjectures wrote:
| Interesting, the gig thing probably promotes
| unionization, because the membership actually carries
| some signaling value to the hiring org.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I believe that is to be true.
| aspaceman wrote:
| Yes, running a "union gig" or "non-union gig" is a
| concern of the directors and producers. Union means
| higher level of talent and skill, but increased costs and
| bureaucratic pains. Non-union means young, fresh talent
| (with on average less skill), so they work linger and
| cheaper.
| username90 wrote:
| They are forced to join if they want to work on the same
| production set as union members. That kind of forcing is
| illegal in Europe.
| aspaceman wrote:
| Again, you're speaking from ignorance alone here.
|
| This is only required in some cases. In a "union shoot"
| as it were. These are rare in comparison to non-union
| films. Every actor has many examples of non-union films
| they participate in.
|
| Usually big stars work in non-union roles and films to
| give younger professionals an opportunity. The star
| provides marketing power for a smaller Non-union
| production. Then people can join the union as well.
| username90 wrote:
| > Every actor has many examples of non-union films they
| participate in.
|
| Actors aren't allowed to participate in non-union films.
| They sometimes do anyway but the contract says they
| can't.
|
| > SAG-AFTRA members cannot accept an acting role in any
| studio, independent, low-budget, pilot, experimental,
| non-profit, interactive, educational, student, or ANY
| production, unless that producer has signed a Contract or
| Letter of Agreement with SAG-AFTRA.
|
| > Members who are found in violation of these rules are
| subject to serious fines and discipline by a panel of
| union peers.
|
| https://www.sagaftra.org/what-happens-if-i-accept-non-
| union-...
| germinalphrase wrote:
| That is one of many unions. Not all have such a
| restriction.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| This may be role dependent. There are non-union laborers
| all over a union production.
| walshemj wrote:
| Not Shure pre entry closed shop is illegal in all
| European countries.
| username90 wrote:
| It is a part of EU law, so at least the EU countries.
| cjsawyer wrote:
| One difference is that film requires in-person work while
| games can be made 100% remotely. Globally unionizing isn't
| the same as unionizing a town. I don't see it happening.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > Game designers/programmers need to follow the same formula.
|
| Thats basically impossible though. Because, at some point,
| programmers from other industries, will just enter the
| market.
|
| What, are you going to try and unionize the entire tech
| industry? Because I'm not going to go along with that (I will
| defect, every step of the way, if people try to push me into
| that arrangement).
|
| And if you don't unionize all of tech, then programmers from
| outside the industry will be able to compete for those jobs.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| As others have pointed out this is a very old design pattern.
|
| In tech, it is this:
|
| Stage 1: Graduate college and get hired by a growing company.
| Observe all you can about what works and what doesn't while
| networking with the best people. Ideally a public company so
| that you can participate in its growth through equity ownership
| (stock options, employee purchase plans, Etc.)
|
| Stage 2: Found (or join as founder) startup composed of good
| engineers you know, that is funded by VC money. Build it up to
| an exit to get a bigger slice of the pie given your greater
| equity.
|
| Stage 3: Found a new company where it is primarily funded by
| your founders and not VC. Build that company up to an exit and
| you and your friends collect the big bucks as you still own
| most of the equity.
|
| At this point you're independently wealthy and can do what ever
| you want with your life[1]
|
| It has been the "silicon valley dream" for a lot of people over
| the last 30 years. And since each stage is typically 4 - 6
| years that is really a 15 to 20 year plan.
|
| Doesn't work for everyone though, and I have observed that
| people who are on this trajectory and recognize they are
| unlikely to reach orbit (so to speak), can get pretty vicious.
| You have a relatively short window to decide if the current
| stage is going to meet your goals for that stage or not, and if
| a stage doesn't provide the necessary lift, you probably only
| get one additional shot at making it work. As a result this
| path also leads to a place of depression for some.
|
| [1] Assuming along the way you've learned to manage your wealth
| in a sustainable fashion.
| kochthesecond wrote:
| This is such an understatement it feels like the equivalent
| to <<buy low, sell high>>
| M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote:
| advice for networking in stage 1?
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Get to know people. Talk to them at lunch time, or offer to
| help on their project when they are stuck, and ask for help
| on your project when your stuck.
|
| The latter is especially helpful for differentiating
| between people who talk a good game and actually know what
| they are talking about.
|
| Practice not assuming anything about someone based on their
| appearances. Learn to listen uncritically so that you can
| hear the insights they bring to the table. I know some
| folks who are genius level smart and have a horrible time
| trying to express themselves. I've often suspected it was
| because they think about things so differently that it is
| hard for them to translate how they think about something
| into concepts "normal" people understand.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Nicely summarized.
| hinkley wrote:
| In games there are also production companies, and the studio
| might stay intact for years but produce their own games, as a
| stage 1.5 or alternate Stage 2. Most of the musicians who
| side with the recording industry have followed a similar
| pattern. They build their own studio (different definition of
| studio) to greatly increase their slice of the pie.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| > Doesn't work for everyone though
|
| I'd say that there is an extremely small portion of people
| that are able to complete Stage 2. "Doesn't work for
| everyone" seems like an understatement.
|
| Stage 3 is probably easier to do once you completed stage 2,
| but still is very difficult.
|
| Really, how many people can you count that would have
| successfully pulled this off? 100 maybe?
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| My guess would be a few thousand in the Bay Area.
| Crunchbase could probably give you a better number by doing
| a bit of data mining on their database to find former Sun,
| Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook, Tesla, Apple, and Google employees
| who have gone on to create startups and exited those
| startups. Those companies alone have minted > 10,000 multi-
| millionaires who were simply employees at the company
| either prior to an IPO or prior to a large run up in value
| (like Apple).
|
| Of people I know who have stepped off at stage 2, they
| pocket enough wealth that they no longer have to work to
| maintain a moderate lifestyle, and then move to a place
| that interests them and work on other pursuits.
| thisalreadyiss wrote:
| I think 90% failure rate at every stage is honest. I mean
| even stage 1 I am sure has an ever-increasing number of
| people that "want to learn to code" or go through an online
| bootcamp, watch a youtube series on javascript, etc. and
| never code professionally a day in their lives.
| yread wrote:
| Let's hope it turns out as well as Dan Vavra's founding
| Warhorse and making Kingdom Come: Deliverance after making
| Mafia.
| objclxt wrote:
| > Hollywood could unionize because no matter how famous no star
| alone is capable of walking out the door to make a new studio.
|
| I don't think that's quite true: United Artists was founded
| specifically by stars that walked out of the door, hence its
| name.
|
| And today lots of stars have their own production companies,
| and the studio simply acts as the distributor. They handle
| getting the movie into cinemas, but otherwise don't have a
| financial stake.
|
| Some examples that come to mind:
|
| * Will Ferrell: Gary Sanchez Productions * Tom Cruise:
| Cruise/Wagner * Adam Sandler: Happy Madison * Brad Pitt: Plan B
| * Shonda Rhimes: Shondaland
|
| Both Shondaland and Happy Madison aren't beholden to regular
| studios at all, they simply have multi-picture deals with the
| highest bidder (in both cases, Netflix).
| Thaxll wrote:
| Even with big names backing those studios, it's pretty hard to
| release good games from scratch and to last.
| [deleted]
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