Milestone Achieved! | Game Dev Unchained Episode 0200

ladies and gentlemen boys and girls welcome back to the podcast the show the number one place to get news information and reflection on game development in the lifestyle of game developers my name is Larry Charles I am one half of the team that brings this podcast and the other half sitting to my right he's up 24 hours a day getting better at dota underworld so that we don't have a bad showing next time we do backseat gamer mr. Brennan found entirely not sure since welcome to the 200th episode of game dev Unchained the original podcast and brought us to you and within your viewership landscape right this is a special episode obviously being 200 episode with just us we don't have a special guest because we want to dedicate to us it celebrate us once in a

while and so for anyone that have been seeing and been with us we are almost approaching our fourth year right if I do the math he said it was 8 episodes when you do 52 times 4 that's one way that's what I said surprisingly Larry is a better mathematician than I am we both know how to use a calculator so that's all it was been we have reached certain aspects at the beginning of the year that we proposed to ourselves and have always eclipsed it every year that we've been in broadcasting if we go up back to our our January episode our New Year episode we were talking about all this idea of maybe creating eventually a convention as our master goal right we did an online convention we called it G ducks and was able to pull it off within

two months and it wasn't even 90 yeah really it wasn't until we sat down pen with paper and say let's do this we hatched a rough plan to kind of combat what we felt like was underserved within the game development community and two months later we had 20 speakers with us and went three days straight seven hours of content each day and that has opened up opportunities that we didn't even anticipate and so we already are planning for their second one we're already talking to speakers sponsors and marketing partners and we're kind of gonna throw this out there right so if you are a game developer if you are having a software or anything of that sort we are opening it up to sponsorship if you want to have exposure for your product or game or whatever please

contact us at info at game dev luncheon comm we are actively looking for speakers as well we already have our list of her own that we're going down and it's gonna be a similar 18 to 21 speaker list if you are interested if you are interesting definitely go ahead and email us in and talk let's talk because if you're a listener of the podcast you know the type of content that we are looking for we're looking for timeless talks about the game development scene that anybody can discover 5-10 years old on and still apply it to their own wisdom wisdom not you know tutorials tutorials are not our thing it's actually good for a games go online show post-mortems even can't you know like hey here's how we messed up and here's what we learned yeah that can work that could work too so if you're someone speaker sponsor are you interested in being a part of G ducks

please let us know and speak it being so successful having speakers and having people tuned in and listening to speakers and watching the replays we are adding a component or at least toying with the idea of bringing the game into the game development talks as in the first three days are we're playing with keeping the same formats yeah the G Ducks where we have speakers invite speakers have the intermissions we're talking about sponsors all that stuff but we're thinking extending the three days to five full days where the last few days are completely dedicated to like a backseat gaming type of show so if you are a participant in any of our other shows besides skiing Dylan chain thank you if you're not what's taking you so long go over and watch the other ones backseat gamer is essentially Larry and I playing through games right and we feel like the last two days of G ducks could be dedicated to celebrating and creating a

platform for any indie developers out there that want to showcase their games in front of an audience and I think it'd be really fun actually playing the games ourselves and so we are opening up submission for that as well so there's three layers of G ducks in the third layer being playing games so if you feel like you have a prototype or games that can be beneficial and is able to put in front of the stage and benefit from it in November which is our next GTX PC only PC PC preferably well I guess if you own you have it you have an Xbox as well yeah well PC preferably right if you can give us something that we can play with we will dedicate like an hour we're thinking about an hour each game see how long it goes but of course we're reaching out to our speakers to kind of throw into that

pot but we feel like it's a it's a very cool thing because not a lot of shows can dedicate and give press to great games and so there is a vetting process or an ITIN since we're not gonna copy and paste whatever you sent to us we have to make sure it's where it's my browser game yeah don't be offended back to browser games yeah don't be offended right but we have to that yeah there's a vetting process but don't be discouraged to submit and talk to us info at game dev Unchained calm all right so that rests up G ducks so at this point let's talk about what 200th episode means to you do you feel like a better game well I feel more wise yeah I feel like we've built some good connections and I feel like we've told some great stories yeah sometimes I feel inspired other times I feel entertained yeah Alex you know usually it's you're

getting a little mix of both of those and then I've learned about a lot about just parts of game development that I thought I had an idea about that I learned that either I was way off or I get some introspective I got some depth excuse your perspective and depth so I think overall I had 200 episodes of like one hours worth of education and insight into an industry that is still very enigmatic for a lot of people out there there's a lot of stuff I realize I still don't understand like why some business decisions go the way that they do why I feel like companies don't value employees mm-hm all those protests that you hear us frequently like banging the desk on let's take in some specifics right of course we don't have our lists of yes and everyone has like amazing attributes obviously that's why we invited them on that's why we continuously tried to invite them back to geoducks yeah and do like a dedicated talk I all start first right so with the many guests that we've had I think we

were before starting the podcast pretty naive in how the game is she was right although our sentiment was I think largely remain unchanged right as in the game development scene is a tough industry a lot of people are hurting you know that there needs to be a solution right I think there was a lot of nuances with like you know we would have Zack rich on talking about the laws and and in Legos legislation of actually opening up a game company right and like what it means it actually owns a piece of the business and and like there's so many things that we would assume as a business that you would have to really spell it out in a written consent to have everybody agree and so that all these scenarios that might play off from what you imagined would actually be on paper so that you can always point it back in and give accountability - right I didn't ever really think that far

right there and I think that essentially with every guess helped us at least me kind of paved the way of what the realities are because maybe I thought of it but I didn't think of it that far and thankfully our guest was able to educate us on itself another situation was you know when we started off the podcast we had a lot of our friends on my friends are professionals but yeah we did have a lot of like hey men do us a favor let's try to build this podcast and can you you know bring some of your audience yeah like kayln chalk yeah one like kayln chalk hardcore a friend of ours who like has always been in support of what we've done right I will always shout him out as like he was like day one ready yeah when we were like thinking about it you know so kaylynn special shout-out to you specifically man you brought a lot of heat and energy to a lot of the projects that we've done yeah and I owe you so much in life man so yeah yeah seriously kaylynn tab have Kurt paps team I mean these are friends

that Norah Jones K the way but also give us an opportunity to kind of sit down and have a real conversation which I realized was a missing part of my life it's like how often do you sit with a friend and talk for an hour straight not that much you mean you banter here and there you laugh and stuff but when you talk about real life issues not often enough and that completely the podcast has transformed my way to communicate with people yeah and then dig in because you know we're not antisocial clearly right I think I'm more antisocial than you to be honest because you you have the ability to talk to anyone I do too but I close off I'm very selective you're not good at being talked to no am I talking with but you don't like being talked to

talk to yeah I think we share that sentiment how you get out of conversation yeah there's a there's a certain element especially in the business of talking right and because we're a podcasting but also as a game developer as we've learned networking is huge component to that and we talked to many guests that talked about how how to engage and stay engaged with potential business partners right yeah I still find it hard I still find it hard to for me to really dedicate myself to everybody you know I mean you have that special ability even before and after I had to kind of have someone and give your attention to them and I just say no I still meant that it's all hard to be honest like my thing about talking or just giving people time is just I care even if I don't know you I care just that you are a person who has given time out of their life to

whatever we're doing yeah and I don't want that to be wasted on like me having an attitude or like whatever bad thing like if you're engaging on something that I love as well yeah that's a moment you know what I mean yeah even if I realize like oh damn you're like super fan I'm not that far in I'm still gonna like you know respectfully let you say what you need to say because I keep having these examples of like times where it's gone too far bro [ __ ] I'm watching a marathon some sense it's like how long is Larry's gonna last with this like he has no out he has no out game dude I just I care very much about feelings right Larry my own and other people's and that gets me in trouble because I'll in dirt I will sit there and endure and like just be like I'll try to be like hey you know I gotta go okay cool cool but then I was thinking about this this net and usually I'm just like yeah I'm just gonna you know I'm gonna try it again because the last thing I want to do is like in canceled culture days the last thing like Jesus Christ I got to go yeah yeah then all that they remember is

that like you looked at them in the face and got mad and said Jesus Christ I gotta go and then they tell all their Twitter people and all this and all that and I don't want to create those kind of interactions I have no problem just talking to anybody listen to let them say what they gotta say I'm willing to take the risk that's what I might go on I'm willing to take the rest and now I will be that [ __ ] on this partnership kind of China and be like hey we're we got it we got that meeting right Larry oh man sorry dude I'll do it a nice way yes but one of us has to be that guy it's fine I don't consider it a weakness or anything I just know I know me very well and I usually endure or allow more than most people will just cut it off you know because I feel like they'll think about like how they feel if they want to get out for themselves where I'm always the like I don't want to hurt that guy's ferns there seems like he's he buys a lot of games he supports people in my industry you know he's talking to a developer right now like I don't want to [ __ ] on okay I'll just be 10 minutes late yeah yeah then if I'm ten minutes late like okay hey man look

please I gotta go I'm so happy and here's my like email or whatever yes well you're a fantastic casual talking we can basically say we're a professional time oh yeah we got a down no we got it down now so what did you feel helped with your talk game by having the intervention as a vodka it's like interviewing like over to you let's say 150 150 I'll say there's a lot of filler episodes in there we have never scripted any of the talks that we've had we're never like we've had like talking points as in three things that we might want to somehow get the conversation to go towards yeah but we've never actually like okay so yeah five minute you have this and that kind of an experience when you were working at such yes we've never done like this you're driven by curiosity so I guess what doing this podcast is getting me better at is like just kind of being familiar with what my talking points are gonna be knowing who we're gonna bring

on and like just having some assumptions of where conversation can lead to yeah storing it all in my brain and then being able to kind of transition or navigate the room needed to try to reach certain points or dialogues right I thought would have been critical to the episode yeah yeah all still on the fly yeah and like well you've always been good on the fly though that's the thing so you feel like you got you talk about yourself like yes this this episode I mean this this podcast had given us so much good content and good guess that we continuously build relations with right and it give attention to a lot of the rules and disciplines that make this crazy industry work as a whole in a huge way it gave me tremendous perspective in ways that I didn't even imagine right because we started the podcast very naively thinking about I want to scream give me a mic so I can scream into it right but even if you go back to the episode we joke about that we had some

nuggets you had a clear goal of trying like talking to our friends and any other person to to make sure that we try to make lessons out of it right not to just purely complain I I don't think we had our real stride and rhythm until like maybe a year after where we finally started to get really big gest not to like downplay any of the guests before but you mean like guests that I didn't think that yes that had cloud that we didn't have a personal connection to exactly exactly that's the best way we were reaching out networks way outside ours yeah and was basically able to give game developers a platform that they didn't have before if we were to track all these game development podcasts for years before - now there's so much more on the Apple podcast form and I have to say we're the pioneers - that you welcome everybody there's there's a lot

of three-letter acronym podcasts that started popping out gamedev blank blank blank yes game dev this game - yeah I think we we really strengthened game dev and said a game developer you know I mean game development but he gives us a lot of pride because these are conversations that used to be taking be taking place in the alley where and away from anybody that has power nobody wants to record themselves giving an opinion these days when they need their job that's that's the first thing you know oh yeah me and you when we first started that was we're number one fear like talking openly about the but four years later we're like whatever who's next I think that we made though were smart right like we we were leaving Activision at the time and then we both went to independently owned studios and then I went to another independently owned studio where I knew that like so long as they knew I was doing my job it wasn't like I was gonna cause any

conflicts if I was out there like hey here's my bravery story had I gone to like a EA or a blizzard or you know like a big like for-profit like publicly traded company yeah game studio I'm pretty sure they're little been difficulties yes let's kind of piggyback on that the podcast has formulated my career ever since we started because knowing how the podcast was so important to me in talking to developers having issues at these big studios made me at least confirm my decision of staying away from big studios that at least didn't allow me to do outside ventures because I knew it was a way to trap myself into this idea of uh enslavement to my job right and so every decision I made was purely about smaller studio that allowed me to do things on the side which is fine I can see which is a huge factor right not I understand not every employer wants their employee openly talking about the game industry

right it's a potential conflict of interest and it's the moment no one joke that I tell all my friends who starts gossip because we still hear gossip as you would work in the game industry right or any industry about why this is happening and why this studio is doing this all these harassment stuff like who's affected are they really changing we all hear that and I always stories like you tell me man I'm just a podcast talking about these problems but with full confidence I'm not going to share to do jeopardize any but of course like we all say that like we've heard things that like we weren't allowed we still hear things that we haven't shared it yeah yeah you're sure but like everybody does to be honest yeah everybody has small talk even when you work for those companies like don't say or do this or do that those people go home and have their best friends for like yo my boss is tripping yeah those conversations are happening left and right so I don't feel bad about that

I don't feel bad at all and we won't you know divulge the details what we do is we get guests about these details and that that helps us navigate you're a lawyer right it's just such going and that has helped tremendously like we've gone the 200 episode and it's been so easy it's been so easy where we're at a point where your books itself like I'm not actively going out there trying to vie for your guests because we're a viable platform now it's gotten to a point where interesting people who are coming to us and we just book home and we talk to them and it's fun it's still very fun and I'm constantly still learning about the industry even though it feels like we're in the niche market it feels like yes we're [ __ ] now what there's so much avenue that so many avenues that we haven't even discovered you know the last time we talked to a guest that is an upcoming episode talking about Google home and Alexa

being a gaming plats like wait what yeah as a game developer I never heard of that but then it's starting to make sense as we discussed through is like oh [ __ ] yeah that's right Wow is that what they're doing over there and that's gonna be everyday technology they're gonna come on board game developers gonna have more options than ever before opportunity's gonna be opportunities are going to be created ways that you can implement or like ways you can be valuable even as a game developer are just gonna continue to I guess grow yeah outside of game development right like engines being you know real-time rendering platforms for movies and previz and things like that that's new simulations and physics and as you know we were talking about Tesla SpaceX and NASA or like hey let's use Unreal create the simulation to see if like we should spend all this money to make this rocket for this specific mission yeah we can much more predictably calculate you know with the data that we have at our exposure today how successful we will be with you know X Y Z type of algorithm for handling navigation moments a moment yeah I mean there's so much power in

what we do or you look at going to Disneyland there's a lot of game design in how people how the park is laid out like this rides and like I was learning all this stuff from Scott Rogers one of his talks and television like grocery store Club Frank I mean I can point out game design me specifically I guess I don't want to be like I don't know about these other feels but like I can point out the game design and gamification and so many things that people just consider part of their everyday life or like hey you just earn that free Club yeah you did this and you earned that blankety-blank and your miles have now ranked up to this now you're a double gold member and if you just fly it ten more times you're gonna yeah like the way that all these incentives are designed the way that people are being manipulated with advertising I'm starting to go on one of those old maintaining no no but it's like the world is changing towards gamification and engagement the move with YouTube is a clear case of them not of just about the few counts but how

long someone actually stays on than watching me because that's the real value Netflix has seen the same thing like we have these people watching movies two hours of time how do we extend that experience Oh what about interactive yeah watching what the is what is that and how how how viable is that and they it's basically gaming yeah so the the the jobs for game developers is vastly becoming very important as far as anxiety for tonight making it like a common cultural phenomenon that every parent and kid alike knows that game don't-don't-don't [ __ ] on games as much right yeah the conversation 10 years ago was like oh someone played doom therefore that's why that kid is shooting up the school or something ring that that was the narrative for gaming now you're seeing the among Jimmy Fallon you're seeing fortnight having an effect on sports

like people doing the dances everybody is respecting it as a art form now as an entertainment value and a viable advertising Avenue for all these corporations to go to and be like hey we want a piece of this that's why we see the entry of Amazon entry of Google Facebook all right these are major tech companies that even though these are tech cousins that work at these places and some of them got interested in tech because of gaming there's a shift of the old guards where the air in these power positions and understanding like how hell game development and gaming is a major sell right it's a major market that these tech companies didn't have participated participation before yeah and like to be affair like Facebook had that Facebook web browser type of games

with the Mafia games and all that stuff before until Mobile's would really took that away right it was a weird transition now they're like mobile just no one understood what mobile gaming could look like and then those flash games started to transfer over and it was like getting major hits I think I I don't want to say blame I attribute like the success of mobiles like giant upswing to the touchscreen iPhone yeah because prior to that it was like two inch screen Nokia like 256-color like just the types of gaming experiences that we had available to us at the time were just not that great not that enthusiastic for me as a consumer to be like oh I will invest lots of time into this I can get addicted to snake yeah like no not really you know to mean but I know that that touch screen iPhone like when I started seeing games come out on that you really started to see the potential like the game design and the ideas of the like hey this is a bus-stop game and a bus-stop game is like look it's just simple loops simple

mechanic and it has lots of depth it'll fill up time you'll be enjoy you'll enjoy yourself and then hey what do you know there's the bus you know but you know flappy bird Angry Bird like freaking all these like the first game that I think that was big that I remember was liked RISM something like that yeah we all remember the I fart days yeah and all that stuff and then forget about it yeah forget about it yes the transitional games have always been interesting because yeah they're the first to market right everyone's just trying to get a product out there that have like a little gimmick that people find it shareable right and then that catches on we can talk about the really talk about like the big innovators we go back all the way to the what this project xenon or something XBLA right with the small indie games because I remember back in the 2k like 10 years ago there was a couple of the guys that were working there like hey we're gonna quit this triple-a job the game hasn't

even shipped it right we're still working on it and we're gonna do this thing on the XBLA yeah I was like what what is that you're you're quitting a stable job take a chance and do this thing and this is like I think even shortly before or meatboy right super meatboy or all is any titles that really made it big and so that that was that that that started the whole the flash game on Facebook thing and then that transition into the mobile games and then now we're seeing back to console so like I feel like a lot of these guys that initially bet on indie titles there was a weird period where they abandoned it a bit right they took a step back because I felt like excellent let's take Xbox is easy we took a step back from the XBLA right they didn't emphasize it as much at a certain period right it didn't feel like they gave it so much attention but now they're going back into it because now they have like this yeah I did get

Xbox and a game pass that definitely needs great continent and the only people that can turn that many content or any yeah or at least give you the cadence that you want you can get small teams that can do well enough you know yeah and now we're also in the age where we see our friends who are traditionally game developers working over at Tesla and SpaceX or Google it's like what are you doing over there not games well the definition is better getting paid better but the definition games are very loose now like is a game it's just interactivity yeah for on a consumer level or if you consider yourself an interactive experience developer that knows a lot about game design or game development that's cool but like you as an artist that does 3d models you could probably be just as effective in doing stuff for movies you could be just as effective in doing stuff for AR VR and simulations definitely right now essentially you're using the same skills I've created the props that made this environment believable that you're walking through

well right now it's very interesting it's like changed the scale to human versus like right Pikachu or whatever everybody skill set is transferring it's not even transferring it's it's more the the film not even a pliable these other industries are looking at game techniques as the way forward right they're they're they're asking game developers how yeah so it's a it's it's a reversal that I didn't anticipate even four years ago before we started a podcast this is an industry that has been growing in the span of a year and a half I think mostly thanks to unreal for being such a graphical fidelity powerhouse all right with its strong suit toolset it makes it a lot easier to convince you have something like this looks just as good as your rendering now you can walk over with your client and show the blueprint sorry all right it's

it's it's an exciting time that I'm so impressed even though we are cynical in our own way about the industry I'm so impressed how organically we just tend to break from the constraints just naturally and that just tells how our technology is so important that no matter how many times a major corporation tries to limit your creativity that eventually it's gonna burst and that game developers will have their time to shine and we're talking about game developer rights and having a better work-life balance and all this stuff they're finding that just in other ways in other industries which is very uh I don't know let's really crack into that

like what does that mean is there is there ever gonna be a future that you feel that the traditional game development scene companies would actually start to implement changes that we've always been proposing which is just no crunching their work wages fire and hire sure but at least have some buffer right at the beginning of the contract that they can live off of well I guess I look at it and say I believe yes because what I'm seeing is less and less people entering the game industry workforce through traditional means obviously AI is closing down a lot of schools which means less places for you to go brick and mortar style to learn how to do what we do although tools are online and more free and they're more available I know the talent pool is potentially spreading and you know that may work against what my point here as being but like the first thing that I see that's hurting and cannibalize in the game industry that will change is the churn yeah they're like oh we just chew people up and spit

them out and then okay cool well that's on your reputation and your reputation is gonna have to absorb that and then the industry is gonna have to absorb that like if you drip it trickles up from the micro level to the macro level because people are gonna say this shouldn't be how it is especially when I know that like the guy that I used to sit across from who deals what I do you know now works at Tesla having a great time has a new Tesla and a brand new home yeah like why would I sit here and continue to let you make yourself rich off of my sweat yeah and I'm gonna go over there where everyone is getting rich together yeah I think the old guard of doing business and I think the publicly traded companies are gonna be the first ones to really like really royally [ __ ] up and then realize that they have to course-correct but the course correction is gonna be too late because all the burned people are gonna be going off to do the right thing the right way already and then they'll be the ones that are established yeah that's a the only thing that I'm fearing is exactly that like before we figure this stuff out all the talent that is worth the money will be at these

other otherwise I stay in the game industry I'm like that's exactly what I'm seeing right now there's a huge Exodus about what these developers that are discovering other industries using the same skill set yeah and honestly probably working less weigh less with more more salary right I'm better perks will there ever be a situation where they ever go back unless it's just for curiosity in interest rate it's not gonna be the money it's not gonna be the perks I don't see a game development a traditional triple-a game development being able to offer half as much because the business itself is the problem right the business of selling $60 game the traditional way on a three to five year development scene in hoping that it's gonna succeed right is not gonna work in some game there's a lot of games still be made that way which is very surprising right but then you know these

guys are trying to figure out the DLC the micro transaction and I feel like it's getting making it worse yeah just look at the new 2k basketball game and yeah we had a conversation about that recently with a friend of ours and like oh the the non skippable commercials mm-hmm straight-up commercials in your news that is a telltale sign of things to come like to have the audacity to do it but then stand by it and be like no that's just how we're rocking because we got all this money yeah okay cool no problem say you're set your company on fire go for it yeah set the industry on fire by setting a precedent that other people will follow and then you know I don't know I don't want to be like whoa is the industry but I know that these things are there's time in between the cause and effect right now we're seeing the thing that is going to cause the effect that will happen in the future but when that thing happens in the future if I'm still around we'll be great times because we won't see this kind of [ __ ] anymore yeah so that only leaves room for the large companies to actually be able to do those Triple A

games right and maybe that is the way to do it or if you willing to spend 300 million dollars to develop a game that you can take that but that's a crazy risk I think that's the that's what's gonna kill these big companies is the like they're gonna be like man now we have to compete again with ps5 graphics and xbox 2 graphics and it's gonna take us X many man months to do XYZ it's gonna cost four hundred million dollars now and we need to sell $88 games and people are gonna be like yeah but you know I'm just gonna go this free-to-play thing yeah yeah I'm gonna just rock out over there but that that's the type of situation that these companies find themselves in because they created it and they look at ways to cut costs and that is i well mostly on the employees back all right crunch time lower talent pushing out bigger talent that cost more money they're always looking for ways what the bottom line is and that's probably one that's causing the most issues right with among game developers it's like don't work on anything but this cost leave you unhappy you know the constant

turnover rate because most people that come into these like big bonuses like you know I'm just gonna give it one year cash in cash out and we're not getting the type of quality I feel that we're used to where it's like a proven team sticking together and making it easier than Essex cycle around so that hasn't changed like that that is something we saw way before we started the podcast four years ago and that has not changed and it I think it's gotten worse right microtransaction was just a small thing four years ago it was mostly DLC how many years ago four years ago four years ago you think so microtransactions has been around for a long time for mobile for mobile way for it to be in the headlines right now okay right no one wasn't people were

complaining in my my profession yeah with mobile but they are more forgivable because it's you know that their game cost 99 cents or less yes now we're seeing the problems that you're talking about where he was pointing $60 game with a commercial in it yeah what am i buying you by commercials with the commercials it's the same reasoning like Hulu at first they did that tab when I was I bought in five dollar membership and I was still seeing commercials and I got an upgrade to a premier one with no commercial why did I buy it yeah give me free TV again but that does a corporation right and they don't know what to do to charge more than a sixty dollar content it's not that hard to just look at it from the customers perspective and say how can we deliver what they would want to pay for right like obviously I don't want commercials yeah obviously if you survey or if you know what other people are charging you can see that like customers are like interested in ten

dollars or less streaming platform with no commercials can I produce that if the answer is no then leave it alone if the answer is yes and competitively then go for it you know what I mean don't try to put it on us that like we can't just make a 60 dollar game and be profitable so we have to do all these extra things to screw the customer over yeah in order for this to be profitable again no way man just do good business make a thing that you can afford to make that you can competitively produce you know and then just do better business than your competitors yeah I think that's the time when the corporation shows geographus okay well it's greed but it also like the consumer nowadays are a lot different everyone expects high quality free not even cheap just free right that's what they expect now because the president the president the president president precedent that we have shown gamers is exactly that first of all with the Kickstarter unrealistic expectations

right where again the bigger developers come onto that platform and just ruin the landscape of what to expect for a small chunk of money right that that already ruins it the iPhone games right having quality content now but for $0.99 or free mostly free now right we confused a market so much that when we tell him to pay a certain amount for what would be logistically realistic to actually make the game they don't believe it yeah and it's not them it's not for us to blame them right we [ __ ] it up there was no standardization of our products in quality and I don't think we're making any better now we're we're charging commercials now people who buy $60 games can expect to pay more to get all the

content that was promised and then on their size like weight they mostly figure that it's uh that we're holding back content on launch right so although we feel like four years ago when we started podcast problems some problems for at least more transparent I don't think I think over do you feel like we're in a better place than four years ago as an industry no no so you felt like it got a lot worse I think we're just in the different developers in the developers I think we're in a different place I see a lot of developers who looked at being on a triple-a game is like oh this is gonna be great for years of job security I'm not really no one's looking at that yeah no way good thank God I see a lot of these big studios that are like hey you know what its profitable to just lay off a ton of people after we're done with the game right and are not facing like the gallows for that kind of behavior so that like Rhian that reaffirms that like they can get it like so you more rampant

yeah exactly for Activision to say 800 people out that I didn't see I could not see that move like four years ago so then you add that on top of the like the harassment things that are happening at big studios the racist things that are happening is people are just being a person of color in the game industry and how we have to do man please get worse this landscape right now is there are good things there are great things there are great communities and there are shining points but there I see a lot more of the bad showing up not I'm not saying I'm not giving you a ratio of like it's this much good in this much bad but I am saying the bad has increased that has some of the good things that you can highlight that you feel like as industry we're gone but I will never the opportunities definitely gone I think that there's there's more that I can do in the industry right now with less people yeah I think the tools being free like Maya Autodesk doing that like Maya and Max Indy license now have you heard of that mmm oh yes 30 bucks a year for my R max

for like the its but that's way better than 1600 or 2500 or whatever it used to be for this mega free bro until you profited this is where all of this until you sponsor us I will say this you are so backwards and your way of thinking and look at every other software where it's like it's free to use for any developers until you reach this royalty marked profit margin they're kind of doing that it's just that yeah they're basically doing essentially it's $20 a month for paid all at once if you hit more than a hundred thousand then you have to get the full license so it's like it's roughly like the Adobe no it's that's when the math works out it's free until look this is so dumb blender is free yeah blender has been championed by the community by the community and legitimate corporations Ubisoft have thrown in support yes epic

has given it some investment through its mega grant to help build that up audio this looks as this is like hey you see what I see there's a lot of small indie developers that are willing to use 3d programs to make their game we can get in on this by charging two three it was that is the wrong way of thinking they should have looked at Leonards like this is a threat it's free we should be free too until they make X amount of money yeah because even blenders it's free forever right no it's free free free for free yeah and sometimes you're free so it's not even competitive it's not even competitive if they say will charge you later but Maya Max is a respected platform for game developers within the I'll say this man workflow for me because I got my like feet wet in Maya I was excited about this news because once my educational

like because I was a college so I'm still within three years but it's probably like a week or two away maybe even a maybe a couple months because I haven't taught and it feels like around three years yeah but I made sure to get my like licensed teacher copy just so I could keep practicing I could probably handle the 200 bucks the 230 bucks a year but even that I grew in it I'm kind of attached to it you're attested if I was like an 18 year old 17 year old who's like I want to do this games thing there's no way I'm picking anything but blender yeah it's but even now as I'm advising you just do blender man because they change the UI and the controls to where you can jump in and figure things out now it's it's their recent overhaul update it's like a huge facelift because UI and and everything else was was graphic before but now it's gotten they've got legitimize so if you're an indie developer unless you're thinking about going into chip eye development or working within a studio there's no

reason for you to touch that software because Autodesk guys are until you sponsor us are really slow with their updates and somehow it's the only software that makes it worse with every update even if Autodesk sponsors us though like I'm just gonna be real man I will tell you straight up where you're [ __ ] up or what are you doing well yeah it won't have anything to do with the money right like I know it's a joke I'm not calling ya it's more like I'm just saying I think that I'll give them credit for taking such a major step this is like a 90% discount essentially if you look at it that's that's pretty good to the people who are used to be charging 2500 or whatever they were charging yeah - now charge to 35 under a hundred thousand dollars of revenue for your business yeah it's a great step it means that there's a potential that they would then have to reevaluate even how far they've came did they achieve their objective and is it better to go maybe nine dollars a month because we're on dollars a month it's

free enough yeah I would pay nine bucks a month I'm paying 54 Photoshop and Lightroom you know what I mean 24 Maya is not so bad dobe sucks dude for that reason man what's your or do you go straight to like substance or something no well now so you're mixing I just don't like over you know how to use their time I just don't like the pay mom of course the don't you you're a professional there's no alternative you right you have to use their suite of products obviously for film streaming all this stuff you know they're still King there's no second because when there is a second they buy them up right there that strong bow I mean you specifically though could you get away with just using like the qixels tools without Photoshop I don't have to do like actual texture stuff like just painting diffuse like we used to back in the day before Adobe bought substance you can get away with just so you didn't have to use Photoshop as much it became more of a preference now that if he bought it you know yes technically you

can really rely on quick soul but when you're doing masks and stuff it's not Photoshop yeah so you should still somewhat relied relying on the Adobe to to kind of photoshop is there for it for a good cost so that sounds like there are a couple tools away from being this is the problem with the major software's right honest adobe these guys that have like a monopoly in that field they stop innovating it's really disheartening because like all its the reason why they stopped innovating why it gives way to substance and quick soul to kind of fill those needs right and it's crazy that they don't look at this data for game development and be able to tell like hey we stopped updating real updates we were allowing competitors coming and maybe that's fine maybe they're like hey when they're actually pretty good we'll buy them up no problem and becomes us but

that's just some of I don't know I don't like that way of thinking you have so such a huge user base and you're just pissing them off constantly so with all of this yes a lifer using their 3d software but I just been so disappointed in the last what five to ten years they've changed nothing and I'm looking over at like smaller 3d software like modo and all these hearts surfacing 3d packages and they're doing all these crazy new new [ __ ] and of course no one stopped me from going over there except that when I'm working within a studio you know you want to prefer some lateral miss with your coworkers right especially when it's dictated by your technical artist that's making tools for

Maya right but that's the reason why people are using more Maya than max mainly because Maya is more open to creating tools for and when I started my career was all max but because of that reason you know more of the team development disciplines can work together with Maya so therefore we went with Maya yeah and sorry Maya but then you know you see all these cool it's cool ways to kind of speed up your workflow with these other programs you just wish your your program would actually take notice and apply those things and they don't know and they choose not to and it's just like come on guys do something but I mean that that type of frustration is on the gain to them in tools right but it's a type of frustration that if I were to talk to an employer is what you see like these things that are happening with the indie

scene you're seeing these things happening with the other industries using games of them at Tech but you're stuck with the same employer who are still limiting your creativity and outside endeavors thinking that it's a threat to their business their business it's insane it's like we don't like how you're going out there and becoming a better artist we don't want you to go practice shooting hoops when you get home you know just only only only get better at basketball when you're here in our training facilities I'd only play for us that bats go home and play horse with your sons or like do foul shots and [ __ ] now we can't have that that stranglehold has gotten tighter I think when we started four years ago it's definitely gone tighter like I talked to friends working on these major company like major companies right that can afford developers having fun outside of work it's just straight up within the contract of even coming on to the team you can everything that you work on

inside or outside this premises we own we own isn't that crazy oh inside isn't that crazy though it's it's audacious but that that was something or something I felt years ago that people would not include because break it down man like you own everything I do is a song my little girl with the singer to go to sleep in yeah somebody heard it put on the radio and I made four million bucks let's just saying but nope sorry that's that's ours because there is no communication between the developers right now that they can get away with this type of stuff the only reason why they would want to say something like that is because they want beyond a shadow of a doubt you to need your job so bad that you'll never not want to do it unless you get another job you know because then they know that like all right our art director is gonna be our art director you know there's there's less things they're gonna pull him away from doing that the way that he could leave is that he quit to get another opportunity or he quit knowing that hey

him writing songs must be so damn important yeah but anybody in that gray area is gonna stay with their job it's it's all about keeping you in that position because it's less variables for them right more guarantees well I mean as we do it's almost an hour so I'm gonna ask you this question okay on our road to 300 episode I'm going to ask three questions right did you get this from the audience are you no no this from me matter natural curiosity gives us how we do where do you feel we should be Wow we know where we should be where do you think we'll would be in 300th episode right how many he's like two years from as the industry so yeah that's a little less than two years little that let in two years time right by the 300th episode do you feel like we're gonna be talking about the same problems extrapolate it would to measure you know

the progress last very interesting uh two years from now what do I think we'll be talking about our game developers a lot of the same stuff I think one of you think people are still being hurt thank you think it's gonna be worse after all these new stories coming in a long sexual harassment has been a thing but these years these game companies I have been they've been slapped on the wrist right then you feel that one's going to jail you know I mean like no one has gone to jail this no one has done anything other than like paper punishment you know I mean like oh we put him in training we made him do it's gonna be one close yeah during our ass until someone is like nope gone to court convicted guilty for years for a sexual misconduct in the workplace or something like yeah until you see that happen the shockwave isn't gonna be powerful enough because they think money and connections will just push it under unaffected things exactly so it's gonna get worse I think sexual harassment will still be here in two years okay the game

crunching culture all that stuff I for sure but still be here in two years I still think that there's gonna be big time crunch projects because I have I don't see the $60 game dead yet I don't see the three hundred million dollar game yet two years from now I would love that be asked that question again yeah but over the next two years especially because the new consoles are coming out I don't I don't see the crunch culture dying I actually see it kind of getting worse for some of the studios we're gonna be making the like launch day products yeah for a PS 5 Xbox two and then even those first two to three years of like trying to get the sales of those consoles high enough that they don't have to work as hard on the game like Sony sold 100 million ps4 is now yeah right where we're talking about making PS 5 like within a couple of months we might start seeing real PS 5 stuff yeah when the ps4 first came out they were selling three million units yeah yay six million units total yeah you know what it means so yeah I still see making four hundred

million dollars to make a game and you only have four million five million people to sell it to some companies are gonna take a hit big time do you feel veterans are gonna stay more than leave the next two years I think leave it as in like the traditional game developer but like maybe going to the enterprise side I see droves of more people especially artists like in mass leaving the game industry for greener pastures and tech greener pastures in previous formulation exactly there's more industries that need their skills that will pay pay that are gonna pay better way better that don't they didn't come up under the way that like steam money yeah yeah exactly there that's what I'm saying well I mean they have a alternate revenue stream that isn't reliant on their end product you know success for and on and that's that's something the game industry and a very few game companies have figured out yeah and that is not going to change yeah so I see those are my all these I have one more

question all these fortnight lovers right those huge gush of young gamers do you see a huge influx of game developers from them yes fortnight added creative mode which is like a huge sandbox where from what I've seen like I've seen people making these like amazing death traps I've seen people make these like musical like oh I've made my favorite song or I've you know in like I'm not saying that for net is responsible for this next wave but I definitely see a lot of people who are in for tonight especially if they're like enjoying themselves in creative mode are gonna get that like wow it's really cool to build a thing and like interact with it and show it to other people and then they try it and that loop is what gets people excited about making games you know so I'll give them that credit 100% I definitely see like a lot of people who would leave a creative mode interested in or even like dreams like dreams is gonna be another one of those windows if you've played or know about dreams on the ps4 that game is

essentially make just literally making game developers a lot right so I definitely see like a huge portion of the people that play for tonight specifically speaking those who enjoy creative mode from 18 or under I could see them transitioning into like oh this must be like I could get a job doing this yeah there's this is a people will pay me yeah I can see that it makes a lot of sense because even with us growing young like I didn't know about until I flip through a magazine right and now before tonight being so readily available and purposely showing kids or young adults that they can make games for a living yeah the conversion must be extra nama compared to when we were starting super-excited about that I hope we have a place for them because yeah two years down the line is gonna be very interesting I think all other things that we talked about in some ways did improve in most ways it didn't which is very disappointing very scary right and we talked about four years ago I thought

I thought shining a light on it and especially the past year a lot of light has been Shawn shown on on these bad practices not really seeing a huge dent like I'm not seeing like a big shift right and maybe at some point we have Emma back on to kind of give us an update but maybe she has a better eye a finger on the pulse about that situation we remain hopeful yeah I mean what we do see are a lot of opportunities a lot of people interested in game development in Oly Oly it starts with respect right respecting the industry and then hopefully that turns over to like treating everybody better and that pretty much covers it matter I guess happy 200 thank you for being here if you've been here for all 200 episodes oh my god big hug from me and Brandon seriously thank you for the support thanks for the time because that's a lot of time it's roughly 200 or so hours of let me listen to what these

idiots they're talking about yeah and we're here these two idiots every Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. Pacific time we're streaming it live if you are connected and watching us somehow you will find us basically if you miss any of these episodes and one have a idea of what other things we are doing go to are you to calm for / blue champs if you want to support us go to our patreon calm for / blue chance to give us a dollar - to reach our immediate next goal and you want to make a direct donation you give it to us my personal PayPal account is yeah there we go we got to put it down there sometimes but that pretty much concludes it thank you everyone for watching we are basically on every day yeah of the week so see ya I'm Larry Charles I'm saying goodnight