General Gaming News and Discussion

Fucker · Jan 31, 2026

Neranja said:
I think the biggest elephant in the room that no one from AAA studios wants to acknowledge: Big AAA titles nowadays have inexcusable amounts of developers. Assassin's Creed Shadows is rumored to had 2000 developers at it's peak. And still they were caught with their pants down stealing art and not knowing the culture they represent (e.g. Chinese architecture in a Japan setting).

Either there is an ungodly amount of people that do nothing but read Twitter the whole day, or the project management is so fucked beyond belief that over 80% of the stuff created goes down the drain.

Lots of employees are dead weight. I watched an interview with an older game dev, and he said as much in a roundabout way. I've seen it myself. I was evaluating an entire company and found that a huge number of them could be sent packing and no one would notice. Elon got rid of 80% of the people at Twitter and it had no impact on productivity.

Ashes of Creation now how 250 employees, been in production for 10 years, still has 4 years to go, and it no where near being done. Granted, they didn't have all those employees the whole time, but I am left wondering WTF they are doing and have been doing to have so little to show for all that time. Similar things could be said for all these huge studios.

Wow was in production for 4 years and ended with 60 employees.

No real shock that 1/3 of game devs in the US got fired last year....and these jobs are gone for good because they shouldn't have existed in the first place.

mkopec · Jan 31, 2026

The more employees are in a corpo, the more of them can do nothing or very little and it will take them YEARS to actually find out that this dude was contributing absolutely nothing. Ive ran into these people all throughout my career since the early 90s. And the bigger the company is, the more of them can hide like this!

INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS · Jan 31, 2026

Fucker said:
Lots of employees are dead weight. I watched an interview with an older game dev, and he said as much in a roundabout way. I've seen it myself. I was evaluating an entire company and found that a huge number of them could be sent packing and no one would notice. Elon got rid of 80% of the people at Twitter and it had no impact on productivity.

Ashes of Creation now how 250 employees, been in production for 10 years, still has 4 years to go, and it no where near being done. Granted, they didn't have all those employees the whole time, but I am left wondering WTF they are doing and have been doing to have so little to show for all that time. Similar things could be said for all these huge studios.

Wow was in production for 4 years and ended with 60 employees.

No real shock that 1/3 of game devs in the US got fired last year....and these jobs are gone for good because they shouldn't have existed in the first place.

I wonder how many jobs were like “director of diversity training” or other useless administrative roles. “Brand awareness specialist.” Etc

Neranja · Jan 31, 2026

jooka said:
expedition 33 was not under 40 people in any way, just because they contracted out jobs to 1000+ people somehow make there contribution not worthy of being counted.

Yes it was, because the core team was below 30 people. The credits list 407 people, and some of the people have multiple entries. That includes all the voice actors which were hired for like a day. And they were pretty open about hiring Korean animators (seven credits) and AI placeholders. You can see the the credits here. Now as homework you can count out all the QA, Porting and Testing and all the Publisher entries.

Also, guess what? Every AAA company nowadays uses cheap Asian asset production companies. Warcraft III Reforged practically had all assets and models outsourced, primarily by Lemon Sky Studios from Malaysia.

QA and Localization are also usually contracted out in AAA studios, too. Even at Activision-Blizzard they have separate companies for QA like Blizzard Albany or Raven Software. Blizzard themselves have only rudiments of QA left inside.

jooka · Jan 31, 2026

Neranja said:
Yes it was, because the core team was below 30 people. The credits list 407 people, and some of the people have multiple entries. That includes all the voice actors which were hired for like a day. And they were pretty open about hiring Korean animators (seven credits) and AI placeholders. You can see the the credits here. Now as homework you can count out all the QA, Porting and Testing and all the Publisher entries.

Also, guess what? Every AAA company nowadays uses cheap Asian asset production companies. Warcraft III Reforged practically had all assets and models outsourced, primarily by Lemon Sky Studios from Malaysia.

QA and Localization are also usually contracted out in AAA studios, too. Even at Activision-Blizzard they have separate companies for QA like Blizzard Albany or Raven Software. Blizzard themselves have only rudiments of QA left inside.

Congratulations, you just spent 3 paragraphs proving my point.

Neranja · Jan 31, 2026

jooka said:
Congratulations, you just spent 3 paragraphs proving my point.

Oh, you never clicked the credits? You said it's 1000+ people, and the credits list all contractors (even the Korean animators). But there's only 407 entries, and a lot of people are multiple time on it.

So you just proven you have no idea what you are talking about.

Hateyou · Jan 31, 2026

Neranja said:
Oh, you never clicked the credits? You said it's 1000+ people, and the credits list all contractors (even the Korean animators). But there's only 407 entries, and a lot of people are multiple time on it.

So you just proven you have no idea what you are talking about.

So hundreds of people worked on it is what you’re saying.

... · Feb 1, 2026

Hundreds who can't unionize and fag the game up because the contracts end

INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS · Feb 1, 2026

... said:
Hundreds who can't unionize and fag the game up because the contracts end

Aren’t unions in 2026 the antithesis of meritocracy?

mkopec · Feb 1, 2026

INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS said:
Aren’t unions in 2026 the antithesis of meritocracy?

Unions served their purpose at the dawn of the industrial revolution. They gave us the 40 hr work week, they took kids out of the workforce, they gave workers rights that are now pretty much enshrined in every business that hires workers. Now in current time frame they are a detriment to any business.

Hateyou · Feb 1, 2026

mkopec said:
Unions served their purpose at the dawn of the industrial revolution. They gave us the 40 hr work week, they took kids out of the workforce, they gave workers rights that are now pretty much enshrined in every business that hires workers. Now in current time frame they are a detriment to any business.

They’re just a money scam now. They don’t do shit for the workers anymore in my experience. Maybe there’s some out there that do but pretty much anyone I’ve talked to that’s experienced them says no.

Borzak · Feb 1, 2026

Some trade unions will help train and find a job if you lose yours. Like if you get laid off they might can find you one in another local whatever. Not that I am in any way a fan of unions. I think those types are a minority and most likely not people who work on video games. Nobody is going to call up the video game union and say "I need X number of people starting next week because we are busy". Of course a large part if not all of the money they take in gets funneled to political stuff that has nothing to do with the actual union.

OSHA and labor relations boards have taken over most of what unions used to be about long ago.

Gavinmad · Feb 1, 2026

If unions were abolished I think labor conditions would gradually return to the state that made unions necessary, but maybe that kind of cycle is necessary to keep corruption in check.

Borzak · Feb 1, 2026

Only one of the shops in my industry are unionized and they get tons of oversite from OSHA and others. The one that is unionized gets different benefits, not really more and not more pay for being unionized. When I worked in San Antonio they had a shop in northeast MS that could ship via the Tombigbee waterway and onto the MO river. I'm sure they asked the other shop just down the road how much they were making but who knows. The non union fed the union shop and then the union shop shipped. No idea what the union guys were getting for the union dues we couldn't call up the union and ask for another X person with Y skills.

Steel fabrication over the entire country is non unionized after the early 80's. Industrial, government, commercial, infrastructure like bridges are not unionized. Some states the erection crews are unionized but not all and certainly not actual fabrication.

There was a huge swing to right to work in a large number of states in that time frame. Reason the largest steel fabricators went from the upper east coast to now soley in TX. Lack of unions. The one in TX now covers all the gulf coast, the south, the midwest, up into Canada from the great lakes to the pacific coast and the one job I did for them was for a hospital in CA.

I think in trades now the really big trades that are unionized are electricians and plumbers. The only time I've seen a spec fort unionized welders was a coal plant in Illinois. I was supposed to go look at it, but I'm not union. So the company had to hire a union rep that didn't know shit to walk around and talk to me on the phone and send pics and then I would call him back with a fix, because of union protection in heavy union state. Same job the workers dropped a keg of bolts and it's just the price of doing business so we shipped them another one no charge. Had to hire a union guy local to them to pick it up and then deliver it to the site. 30 minutes of work because he was union.

Now 35 years ago the shop I was working in the office at voted to unionized. That lasted almost no time at all. In a union shop all wages for X job are posted on a sign. You are fitterX or fitter Y and your pay is listed. Everybody realised how much or how little they were making compared to others and it wasn't fair. So they disolved. No way is one person with the same title worth what everyone else with the same title is. That's human nature.

Now is that the way it would work for gaming devs? I don't know, but like I said. It's human nature some are better than others and you can't come up with a job title classification that is different fort everyone on the payroll.

moonarchia · Feb 1, 2026

Gavinmad said:
If unions were abolished I think labor conditions would gradually return to the state that made unions necessary, but maybe that kind of cycle is necessary to keep corruption in check.

mkopec · Feb 2, 2026

Gavinmad said:
If unions were abolished I think labor conditions would gradually return to the state that made unions necessary, but maybe that kind of cycle is necessary to keep corruption in check.

Doubt it since most jobs in US are non union and all those gains are pretty much law of the land now. Like 40 hr work week, OT after 40 hrs, holiday pay. No more children running machines, lol. In fact unions are terrible for the simple fact they promote people not based on meritocracy but seniority even though they might be the worst fucking employee in the company, but just happen to float by for the longest lol.

I told this story here before but my wifes old man got promoted to the most coveted fucking job in the Ford plant which was the night "cleaner". Yeah cleaning bathrooms and shit. Why? Because he would get all his shit done in a hour and go home and drink beer, then go back and punch out or sign out or whatever. He did this for the last 10 yrs of his job there. making well above $100K/yr.

Another story about unions is this dude that I used to jam with. Great guitar player. Anyway he worked at that same ford plant my wifes old man did. But he had this fucking problem with stalking and harassing certain females that worked there. Long story short he finally got let go after YEARS of this shit, many write ups, many complaints...The union would just step in and save his ass until they could no longer. I think the last straw was he got into a literal fist fight with someone. (He was a type 1 diabetic and had fucking problems) Hes dead now RIP, good buddy of mine.

Here is another one, I promise its the last one... My wife actually worked there for a few 90 day stints over the years when they needed extra workers. Temp 90 day laborers that were non union and the 89 days was actually because by union standards they would need to be hired full time after the 89 days.. Anyway this was a parts depot, basically the main NA warehouse where all the parts would be shipped out of for dealers, other mechanics shops, etc... Anything from full body panels down to the little stick on Ford badges. So she would be handed an order, and just walk the isles with a large shopping cart picking the parts then handing it all off with the order to the packaging team which would box the shit up and ship it out... So yeah the first few days there she would just go to town. Order after order...etc... Then she got stopped by some dudes there and was told they had a daily quota to fill, anything extra would make us all look bad and if everyone did this the quotas would be increased. So yeah all these people just did the bare fucking minimum every day. So how is shit like this good for the company? Did they need the 90 day workers there if they actually DID their fucking jobs the right way every day?

Anyway I have way more stories about how wonderful unions are.... Bottom line is they are fucking terrible....

rhinohelix · Feb 2, 2026

mkopec said:
Doubt it since most jobs in US are non union and all those gains are pretty much law of the land now. Like 40 hr work week, OT after 40 hrs, holiday pay. No more children running machines, lol. In fact unions are terrible for the simple fact they promote people not based on meritocracy but seniority even though they might be the worst fucking employee in the company, but just happen to float by for the longest lol.

I told this story here before but my wifes old man got promoted to the most coveted fucking job in the Ford plant which was the night "cleaner". Yeah cleaning bathrooms and shit. Why? Because he would get all his shit done in a hour and go home and drink beer, then go back and punch out or sign out or whatever. He did this for the last 10 yrs of his job there. making well above $100K/yr.

Another story about unions is this dude that I used to jam with. Great guitar player. Anyway he worked at that same ford plant my wifes old man did. But he had this fucking problem with stalking and harassing certain females that worked there. Long story short he finally got let go after YEARS of this shit, many write ups, many complaints...The union would just step in and save his ass until they could no longer. I think the last straw was he got into a literal fist fight with someone. (He was a type 1 diabetic and had fucking problems) Hes dead now RIP, good buddy of mine.

Here is another one, I promise its the last one... My wife actually worked there for a few 90 day stints over the years when they needed extra workers. Temp 90 day laborers that were non union and the 89 days was actually because by union standards they would need to be hired full time after the 89 days.. Anyway this was a parts depot, basically the main NA warehouse where all the parts would be shipped out of for dealers, other mechanics shops, etc... Anything from full body panels down to the little stick on Ford badges. So she would be handed an order, and just walk the isles with a large shopping cart picking the parts then handing it all off with the order to the packaging team which would box the shit up and ship it out... So yeah the first few days there she would just go to town. Order after order...etc... Then she got stopped by some dudes there and was told they had a daily quota to fill, anything extra would make us all look bad and if everyone did this the quotas would be increased. So yeah all these people just did the bare fucking minimum every day. So how is shit like this good for the company? Did they need the 90 day workers there if they actually DID their fucking jobs the right way every day?

Anyway I have way more stories about how wonderful unions are.... Bottom line is they are fucking terrible....

This ad about why Socialism sucks is brought to you by Reality™. Now imagine the whole economy is run this way, and they shoot people who don't meet those quotas. It's how millions of people starve in every Marxist system and why they all have to be backed up with totalitarian force of arms. It helped turn the UK and the whole EU from the world's Industrial powerhouse into a middle power. Not, as you can see, Americans are different or special; exposed to it over enough years, we would suffer the same effects. We're just lucky to have 50 states as laboratories and some places with a bit of a "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" attitude about how we do things.

My dad and grandfather (not related) were engineers at non-union chemical refineries and we were super lucky, as the union ones would go out on strike and those kids' fathers would go without money for weeks/months. They would save for it but what a terrible way to live. The oil/chemical companies actually paid better/had better benefits at the non-union sites so they didn't have to put up with the HR and other BS you got at a union plant.

Edit: Then you see how they treat people at Amazon facilities and understand how unions came to be, once again, and why they are trying to import H1-B workers into the US. No one should be treated that way. Fuck unions but fuck big corporations too.

mkopec · Feb 2, 2026

rhinohelix said:
This ad about why Socialism sucks is brought to you by Reality™. Now imagine the whole economy is run this way, and they shoot people who don't meet those quotas. It's how millions of people starve in every Marxist system and why they all have to be backed up with totalitarian force of arms. It helped turn the UK and the whole EU from the world's Industrial powerhouse into a middle power. Not, as you can see, Americans are different or special; exposed to it over enough years, we would suffer the same effects. We're just lucky to have 50 states as laboratories and some places with a bit of a "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" attitude about how we do things.

My dad and grandfather (not related) were engineers at non-union chemical refineries and we were super lucky, as the union ones would go out on strike and those kids' fathers would go without money for weeks/months. They would save for it but what a terrible way to live.

I was thinking just that while remembering the story. Its like a little socialism microcosm inside all these companies that have to deal with unions.

INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS · Feb 2, 2026

rhinohelix said:
This ad about why Socialism sucks is brought to you by Reality™. Now imagine the whole economy is run this way, and they shoot people who don't meet those quotas. It's how millions of people starve in every Marxist system and why they all have to be backed up with totalitarian force of arms. It helped turn the UK and the whole EU from the world's Industrial powerhouse into a middle power. Not, as you can see, Americans are different or special; exposed to it over enough years, we would suffer the same effects. We're just lucky to have 50 states as laboratories and some places with a bit of a "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" attitude about how we do things.

My dad and grandfather (not related) were engineers at non-union chemical refineries and we were super lucky, as the union ones would go out on strike and those kids' fathers would go without money for weeks/months. They would save for it but what a terrible way to live. The oil/chemical companies actually paid better/had better benefits at the non-union sites so they didn't have to put up with the HR and other BS you got at a union plant.

Edit: Then you see how they treat people at Amazon facilities and understand how unions came to be, once again, and why they are trying to import H1-B workers into the US. No one should be treated that way. Fuck unions but fuck big corporations too.

My wife and I have had a few arguments in the past few years over what is and isn’t socialism.

short answer is she doesn’t know what it is, and said it took Mamdani the mayor of NYC explaining it, almost verbatim as I described it, until she finally “got it.”

we were watching a show set in Soviet Russia recently, and it did a pretty accurate job of it. I was describing it and every few episodes something I said about it would be on the show. I’m not old enough to have lived through Soviet era, but I’ve read a lot of books on it. (remember what Socrates said: the more I learn, the more I realized that I am retarded)

But as we are watching this show, she kept saying things like “why don’t they just switch jobs?”

they can’t.

why?

Because socialism.

why don’t they just move to a different apartment?

They cant

why don’t they just leave the country

They can’t

why do their cars suck

socialism.

why don’t they have enough food to eat?

socialism.

Etc etc. at the end of the show she was like, I don’t think I like socialism. GIRL. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you this entire time.

INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS · Feb 2, 2026

rhinohelix said:
: Then you see how they treat people at Amazon facilities and understand how unions came to be, once again, and why they are trying to import H1-B workers into the US. No one should be treated that way. Fuck unions but fuck big corporations too.

idk if illegal or predatory immigration is going to stop unless the feds go after business owners who hire illegals and h1b visa holders.

maybe eliminated the h1b visa, and then hold anyone who hires an illegal alien (whether they know it or not) accountable with mandatory prison time and mandatory physical punishment. Six months in prison and caning would do. I think they’d make god damn sure all their employees were legal or not real quick and verify thoroughly if their own well being was on the line.

but nope. It’s not the businesses who are predatory’s fault…

I think they only way America is going to recover is if they adopt Poland’s immigration policy and Singapore’s law enforcement policies.

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