The Complexities of Game Development and Market Reception | 317

foreign [Music] everybody welcome to another episode of Game Dev Unchained the number one game development podcast according to chat Chief BT in the lifestyle of care of I am your host Brandon Pham and with me Ray Graham how you doing Rick what's happening what's going on what's up Ray uh so it's been a while uh you know you see Ray you kind of know the drill for uh uh faithful listeners out there for new listeners this is a round table news episode where game developers give their opinions on the happenings of The Game Dev world and just giving our opinions and hopefully helping others out there how to navigate through this industry safely and soundly all right so a lot

has happened right and uh I I do want to cover one of the main topics for those who are reading the title about red fail I mean redfall all right uh I don't want to jump on this hate train right but it does highlight a recurring problem for game developers out there um what happened right so let me kind of give a synopsis and I'm gonna throw it over to you Ray and I want you to know your thoughts because I I feel like you've been through every part of these type of production right all the way from pre-pro to Post Release um being in the industry for so long redfall was a game by Arcane Studios right release uh in March um late February got delayed a few times right probably should have gotten delayed more but uh you know published by Xbox it was so bad like it almost

felt like a Bethesda game where almost there just got murdered and I didn't remember it being that um any game having that bad of a press I mean it was trending on Twitter you know next to the Ukraine war and I was like what is going on and basically from critical reception to fan base um that are Arcane faithfuls got completely turned off from the game and the whole experience just felt cheated and it was one of those rare 70 games that was not 60 anymore and then you know that all that kind of got thrown into the mix of hate and disgust so the kind of kind of kind of walk me through your day I know you're not I mean honestly we probably have a lot of friends that are Kane share Bloodlines with Bioshock teams and

Arcane people designer heavy type of games right um there's a lot of familiar people I think uh that we've crossed path with so what are your thoughts man when you hear things like this I mean obviously what are your feelings I don't I don't know why this one that belongs so out of proportion compared to all the other games that come out and Yeah reviews or whatever like I think this was a little blown out of proportion for sure I don't know um I I didn't play the game right so I have no idea and um you know I remember seeing the trailer of it I was like yeah it was all right it looks cool I guess um but I I like I like all every game that Arcane makes usually you know what I mean yeah um but I just never really tried out redfall at all right um and so like I don't really understand like you know yeah yeah there's PC

performance issues and I'm like yeah that that's happened to a ton of games before in the past right so I don't even know what the why the reaction was so outsized for this one like you know like it just doesn't seem more egregious than any other game that came out and people didn't like you know what I mean yeah it wasn't an EA game right so yeah I don't know I was very surprised but as I kind of was dig into it you know um this typical stuff yeah the glitches the bugs it was unfinished literally animation would just not be in play and you just have this vampire floating around even after a shot yeah stuff like that but I think because I think the tolerance level from Gamers or yeah you don't think so from the reaction though I just feel like people just don't I think I think

they have the patience for it anymore no I think there's a little bit of the console war nonsense in the mix of it too you think Sony's hyping it up we're not so excited but like we're we're Xbox folks want a good game oh yeah it's been a drought yeah I was watching something else and somebody made made a point where they were like if this came out next year right amongst a bunch of other games for Microsoft that came out before it like say star field comes out before or something else comes out before and then this comes out maybe people are not reacting so harshly yeah um I think I think people are just thirsty for an Xbox hit and then this came out Xbox you know published um and it and it didn't beat whatever those expectations were yeah so so I think that's kind of what the what the situation what the situation was yeah um I think that at least that's a that's a possible

answer you know yeah and then the whole like you mentioned seventy dollars I mean it's all gay best man like don't don't complain about how expensive game is it's not getting past two right so if you if you if you wanted to try it out you could easily tried it out and then bought it if you liked it you know what I mean so so like I don't even want to hear about no 70 game you know the game schemes are expensive they're getting bigger and bigger the the the needs the the standards of the audience is getting higher and higher you know what I mean it costs it costs real money yeah everyone's reaction it sounds like it's it's a hard pass all right and I think it does have a lot to do with yeah the Microsoft Community have been bloodthirsty right and they just the scheme kind of came out pretty fameless all right it was just not a lot of people vampire games

and just giving me material right now uh but like a vampire game on its own have always been a problem for games right uh it's just it's just not the same as zombies you know there's not a lot of vampire games that really became hits for whatever reason I mean after the zombie phase I know even Hollywood and other entertainment was trying to find the next big thing and you had uh what was that teenager um with uh Twilight race right they were trying to shift towards Twilight they was trying to shift to werewolves believe me tried to Twilight's huge it's huge for a minute for minutes right but it never really transferred for games games never really had the hit vampire game except for if it's like maybe mixed with western or something Western games yeah but like the the there was a byproduct of it aside from the fan aspect of like this game sucks it's buggy we've been waiting forever for Microsoft to release a game and Sony's

just having a party every night right with their hits um the development standpoint is like I'm I was frustrated with this Viewpoint of uh how the publisher was on the bad even even Phil Spencer came and I was like dude I'm sorry man but like yeah we bought Bethesda right which owns Arcane or is that a Max zenimax which owns our King they're all the same right it's it's animates so confusing but like but he was like we don't 100 control like everybody right and we still kind of trust our developers and yeah well in his in with that same interview I think he even said though maybe we shouldn't trust our developers yeah which is terrible for the ones that are actually doing well but like having too much Freedom obviously to be very bad well a very bad week for

Microsoft yeah I mean you could have freedom right but then but then you also have to like with boundaries things you've got things objectively and be like yeah I know we need to give you more time or yeah no the quality needs to be this or yeah we need to scale back on scope yeah right like you still you can't just let them do whatever right because you're giving them giving them money to make something well here's the developer standpoint because this is where your years experience you've been in these rooms right before just when the idea was hatched before execution you're just looking at the producers strategy to kind of get this done and you're like this is bogus is stupid right the gamers are not there with us when it comes to this they just automatically think the big bad corporations are pushing these poor little game developers into deadlines that they never really agreed to right but the truth is there's a lot of dead time while figuring these things out and the creatives you know the ones that

actually have a say in things really shoot themselves in the foot and very much that we want to blame the guy with the money who's giving this opportunity to them like I always kind of go back because yo this is just not the right people making the calls and because of these dead periods they try to make the game the last year and before sometimes that work but nowadays like he said before budgets are higher there are less risk available to take and there's a lot of like because the budget is so much higher there's a lot of dependencies that has to work right there's a lot of pressure right this isn't yeah this isn't Supply by night company we're talking about you know what I mean it's Arcane yeah it's Arcane right like they make good games period right so [Laughter] it could be you know was it a different team within our King right that was you

know are they making oh yeah that was it a different team like there's all sorts of different things that could have gone into it um but then yeah but at the end of the day right it wasn't something that probably should have been it's been delayed and then they probably just didn't want to delay it again right and we're like oh yeah this is good you know like you know the industry we were big on the whole day one packing patching and subsequent patches you know well the game's out you know and to make it better over time you know we're all about that right so it's about making those uh those choices um it's less forgivable now I do feel like with this reception that that Liberty to be able to kind of keep patching things have needs to be more uh careful now well let's see how much leeway we did get star Fields this is printed out right yeah starfield's gonna be because if you Failure to Launch dude yeah I think star fuel is gonna come out and be perfect

game and require no patches it's the most ambitious game ever I mean isn't it like Star Citizen but actually coming out that's the idea of it I don't even know if it's like star system was probably all sorts of nonsense right but like but like you know especially uh Bethesda really they their games come out pretty rough like uh of day one and so like yeah I but I'm pretty sure because it's Bethesda and the fan base and all that if folks are gonna Overlook a lot of the issues you know what I mean well the game does not have to be pretty solid yeah as they always do um so that's what I felt until this I mean redfall is a failure but that's against a pass man like Skyrim came out yes you know fallout Fallout 76 like I mean they get a lot of pass you know and so I I think Starfield is going to get the same I'm calling it now that's just that's just my prediction right it ain't

gonna be no redfall situation I don't think I don't know man I think something changed something went in the water as soon as Microsoft bought Bethesda there's like a higher standard now it feels because this is probably the first game that Microsoft that that has shipped under Microsoft's bring right we're at fall and the drought is is continuing like I don't know any what's the is it really Starfield star field which is this year it's end of year yeah so even Phil Spencer dude yo if you look at his little announcement that dude has been you know looking at the demos and he's like yo Starfield is not gonna say whatever this is you saying something different than that right okay and and um I actually agreed with what he was saying because I was talking about this the other day yeah um he was saying that the folks have chosen yeah their console

right yeah for the console war yeah yeah and and Microsoft has lost yeah right like he said that and and he and he said that but they are not in that war they're trying to bring games to people on many different platforms with Game Pass Game Pass is their thing right and they're pushing hard on Game Pass and so he's like if Starfall comes on is the perfect game ever you know right there's gonna be no one on earth right or he doesn't feel this could be a vast majority of people that would be like screw this PlayStation maybe go get Xbox because star feels dope like No One's Gonna do that and I agree like I don't think that's good I don't think it's like that's gonna happen especially if you you have a PlayStation with you know Horizon zero Dawn and Spider-Man and God of War and and you're playing your games and you have your you also mentioned something about like you know this is the worst generation because this is a generation when people moved to digital right so everybody has a

digital library in the ecosystem that does not go with them right yeah yeah and so like there's no game that's going to come out to make you go oh yeah I forget the last five years six years of PlayStation 5 and let me see I haven't even been that long how long has it been three years four years right 2020 yeah yeah and then I'm gonna just drop drop PlayStation because star feels good like that's that's just not that's wishful thinking that's not gonna happen you look pretty defeated in that thing dude it looks like he's about to get fired or like he's like yeah this is my last year I don't know why I'm here because it was like yeah like kind of funny is a good podcast but was that the place to announce these things it's like like it was very casual but he was yeah but he was just being like honest and and like and I don't honest I don't see anything wrong with that or because I I think you we've seen for a while that Microsoft was not competing at the console level like Game Pass

obviously is them not was the future is the future yeah it's it's like I mean it's not news right like but everybody's acting as if it's news right well I made a lot of news yeah like it's it's like like why are we why are we acting a little surprised like this is just this seems very logical you know it just made a lot of sense that Activision Blizzard deal was so important to them it felt like their last Leaf of opportunity they have to have that right that proved in UK at least right uh European Union UK is outside of that right yeah I don't know what that deal is but it sounds like eventually it'll turn towards to their fever but yeah the the red Falls story more than just the game I I felt it was like a turn in tolerance from from Gamers because yeah I'm with you man

like what was that Iron Man game from EA that had pretty bad press that was like a um destiny uh clone Anthem Anthem had a really bad and that was made by Mass Effect people right from BioWare the same same kind of same kind of sentiment you know there's a lot of high expectations this is their follow-up from a pretty successful team and it just flopped pretty hard right and into a lot of respect to that I think the team is no more to be honest disassembled pretty uh badly and whoever was left basically now you're Mass Effect forever you know you work on the next one we gave you a chance yeah that'd be flushed down the toilet yeah that happens right so I was hyped for anthem when they first announced it I was like yeah I mean the bells and whistles were there but no no substance

so I I just want to be at a point where there's accountability for Mall fronts you know obviously yes the Publishers whoever Finance the money they have a saving too but it always goes back to the developers it's like yo you know what you're doing you know every day you know what year what you're putting out there in the world you know you just like you got planned you've worked on bad games yeah yeah yeah you know like how hard it is to turn the ship around because the ship is going you know what I mean yeah and you you may try to do some stuff to make it better in some ways right but like you know game's gonna come out be trash like you know it it's unfortunate that the only way that we we we see who's right for the job is actually by trial of Fire

they really a way of knowing is this guy knows you know it's not just one person though right it's just no it's a band of team is about Misfits everybody works together right it's like it's about a bunch of different things you know and and sometimes like and sometimes you're like it's not very good but yeah maybe we add maybe we add one more thing if we make it look just a little bit better you know and uh you know it'll also I'll talk I'll talk it I don't even know if red Falls a bad game or not it's bad I mean I have no idea right I watched some gameplays I I had to press stop it was so bad the YouTube video froze and bug Dad I have no idea right I just I just know that um you know people complaining about the bugs and the glitches and stuff like that but that's like again that this this all sounds like just yet another video game that probably just needed a little bit more time you know and just didn't have it you know because

this stuff costs money and they have to get it out and oh I'll patch it later because that's that's kind of the thing now right so yeah I think before it was fine because it was a lower budget and even not saying that it was cheaper uh to a great extent but you know it was costly always I do feel like there are less and lesser chances of doing that as much like I feel like Publishers are a little smarter of what what games are in in the process of it gamers are a little bit more pushy and if anything they're they're more forgiving oh yeah just keep delaying it until it's ready it's like yo every day costs Millions right yeah so you don't understand the business yeah it was about a good game though right so hey you want to delay it fine I want a good game yeah disappointed sure but what a good game game is a lot more um forgiving but it is definitely the person paying the bills that are the most concerned and they should be it's

like yo they're paying the bills yeah sometimes it yeah like I'm half half right I mean like at a certain point it's like yo I mean I guess there is really no solution to the last hour do you completely like drain the swamp what do you do a lot of the really good games that you know of like had delays had delays and then like infinite money where they could just Noodle around forever and then they they find the game yeah rock star you know the respawn guys have definitely a solid group because you're a blizzard at one point yeah um I keep saying this but Riot's kind of becoming the new blizzard right now they're having a Renaissance moment uh it seems like everything they're making has become hits but like it it always ties to like a group that have worked together before

shipped had those trials by far stayed together um and and then basically prove themselves over and over again and uh I I think that that is becoming more and more rare man like uh with everything that's going on with the industry people moving around uh movie remote help repair some of that because now they can connect still to Old colleagues without having to be in the same city right so I'm curious about the next two three years well I mean like think about it the reason why most people move away is because of family or just hometown like because of location if it's a good team yeah like I was saying that you can't make video games remotely right but when you talk about teams that have chemistry and work together oh yeah you gotta be in office right like some sort of locality has to happen sometimes in that you know what I mean so I don't know if remote is conducive to that you know what I mean

uh I mean that's a good point like I think a lot of studies are a challenge to show that remote is not working for like large creative teams right I think just many things that we talked about the the mentoring from older to younger the the camaraderie of just sitting next to a bud and brainstorming really quickly um I think people are are finally coming to grips like this is irreplaceable um and uh there are problems obviously with remote I know I still think you just need to focus on those moments right pick when you're going to have those moments of of collaboration yeah um because that's edited a like programmers still need to be left alone right yeah bulk time of the hours yeah you know what I mean so so having having remote is is good in some cases right but then it's just you have to you have to work differently and work hard at like collaborating brainstorming coming

together yeah you use the online tools to do all that kind of stuff yes but then also make sure that you do come together face to face the form they'll form those bonds because those bonds actually exist once you form them in person they do exist over remote you know I mean right at the point that reverse it's like uh it's like it's like uh I don't know it's like the oxygen mask you know you take every time you get together it gives sustaining their life and partnership in the remote session yeah um I I that's why I think a lot of offices are kind of having people live around the office just so that they can commune once in a while um but yeah like he said like I can't imagine him from what I'm hearing about those remote colleagues that you have you just don't have the connection and you form those lifelong friends as much it's literally when you do meet on

Zoom which is laborious you just want to talk about work you don't want to talk about catching up on life and stuff right those small moments that just are so such a big concrete part of working uh yeah well you just have to work at it that's it yeah I don't want to um uh that's your loss like dude it's just difficult man like like you said the cool thing about remote is that this very solitude Focus way of getting work done right and then what the adverse effect of that is when you do go and and meet it feels like a bother it feels like I'm pulling away from getting work done right even though you're trying to accomplish things together as a group brainstorming I think everyone kind of feels that meetings are a drag when you're working remote right and it's like yo let's just

try to get this finished as quickly as possible so I can get get to the real world all right and get things done yeah that sounds like your brainstorm recession is garbage but yeah I love brainstorming right but I'm thinking you know if most your time is being seclusive you're just naturally I don't know as an introvert you know I feel drawn to being more closed off I think that's more just introvert period right versus extrovert right but like you know I'm an introvert with a podcast I can't be that introverted but I feel this way yeah but speaking of that um I I feel man we we haven't done a round table for a while and and Zuckerberg this is how he gets his updates to do it you know to do what's next with his company since we talked and I have to kind of at least speak to this you know massive layoffs a focus on uh efficiency here right that's what

2023 he marked it as uh the metaphor sounds like it's dead uh like you know there's a starting a reduction of that team like I have friends there you have friends there they're starting to look elsewhere um and because it's at CPT there's a huge before the whole Silicon Valley focus on AI and AI product that's the next web right um that everyone's kind of shifting gears and really going hard in the paint for what are your thoughts Industries out of ideas yeah they're just uh biting like like yeah like I I think okay don't get me wrong um chat TPT is a thing you know majority is a thing um these things are impressive uh I think they they have some utility um especially if you look at like mid-journey and and uh you know texture

generation and and there's now things that are like trying to do the 3D mesh Gold Rush right now yeah yeah the 3DS generation just like type in I want a couch and then there's a 3D mesh as a couch right like there's some cool stuff right um folks that I know that have been in the AI space for a long long time [Music] for years and years and years they're all like meh like very apathetic and just like it's cool but it's it's it's iterative improved been on on stuff we don't know if that's the right direction yeah like we don't care you know like maybe there should be a different direction right and then John Carmack Road narcos saying that he thinks yeah he should be going in a different direction because everybody's going chat GPT large language model Direction and he's like that possibly could be a dead end so let's go a different direction to get some context to that uh because years ago he quit meta he was like trying to

focus like what's the main focus he said AI way before everyone start really jumping onto that and now what you're saying is that he he's changing his mind because everybody's jumping on EI and it's although he's still doing it he's doing a different branch right he's trying to he's trying to get to actual general intelligence right because like as as much as we think as much as we think chat gbt is like smart right it's just sounds art yeah right like it's it's not really it's regurgitating known information right it's it's not really thinking and it's also hallucinating and errors and mistakes you know et cetera right so so it's not really it's not really fully there and and yeah like but what we have seen is pretty impressive and has utility yeah and and then therefore the

investors are all hot and bothered right because Microsoft is like hey here have 10 billion dollars right yeah and so all the investors are on bothered and so therefore to get the investors attention in a time of in a time of uh hard to come by money yeah everybody's like oh I'm doing AI too by the way yeah you know do you know we do an AI too right did you know we do generative stuff did you know like right and um and it's like well you were and you were taking your time and you were like slowly you know you were thinking about the ethics of it and you're you're developing these things you had a huge team of researchers publishing papers right but then now that yeah it's like okay how how what what features are we doing with this general intelligence like let's let's talk about it now right and there's and there's a rush to talk about it um just to get the investors attention

and that's what's annoying and it it has created a bubble like it we are in a a generative AI bubble it doesn't mean that when the bubble bursts there won't be some actual valid technology at the end of it but there will be companies that will be dead oh yeah dude um so many AI tool ads coming out of nowhere yeah yeah it is it's crazy and the thing is a lot of the a lot of this Tech you know has been around for a while right and and then rebranded money because there's no money in it at the time it's like oh it gets de-prioritized or or you you don't put as much people on it but now that the investors are like what is your AI strategy yeah oh yeah we have a we have a team but 20 30 people will do AI now right you know I mean it's it's it's uh yeah it's it's just it's just a lot of followers right and and there's some folks out ahead that were innovating

um and then a lot of people are following right and um it's metaverse dead you know um no oh like your boy Tim Sweeney doesn't doesn't think so right I think Sweeney's the only one he's secretly building in the middle of her and and he's just and he's like look like you know like fortnite I could talk to people we could commune we're having live events in here this is kind of a metaverse right but it's not it's not the better verse at the scale that people are talking about because again it was a bubble it was a hype thing right where it's like it'll take 10 15 years 20 years to get to like the scale that people are talking about if if you actually focus on it yeah um but but but everybody's like oh I'm not there yet it's it's it's two months later we're not there yet uh and AI is the new hotness now yeah oh okay nft because the metaphors result really a lot of what was driving in Memphis nfts right and

now the market speculative cash all that nonsense has has died pretty much well and if these aren't worth anything anymore right oh better versus Batman so because I can't I can't sell fictitious nonsense on the internet right so therefore it's dead no the thing that you attached to it was dumb right you know and and so that that's really what people people have to like look through that right and and of course Tech is just like growth beyond all things we need the money yeah one thing we'll get the investors interested especially at the time like now where it's hard financial times right yeah uh oh AI yeah well this is a I completely agree with you when we go each year has kind of like a buzzword for investors where if you're not saying AI this year you're not getting any money um in the and the market moves in that way um if all it has always moved that way financially right right

um so there's a lot of people it's just saying oh yeah there's another bubble which he said but to an extent right there are actual transformative transformative technology being built by people with the right mindset and goals but obviously there's a lot of people with Fool's Gold um being marketed to people um in the last six months as soon as Jazz PT everyone suddenly knows AI it's like everyone suddenly has the solution right and it's so obviously there's been some like the rate of of things coming out is crazy it's an insane rate I've never seen anything like it either I've never seen anything this fast because but a lot of the things it's like I put a UI on top of something that you could use if you're a programmer yeah I put a UI on top of it made it easier to use yeah and so like it looks like it's like this big impressive thing but it's like something you can slap together really really quickly right that's exactly what

happened yeah right but uh but no but like so so like the rate but the rate of things that are kind of is crazy and and yeah I think there's like actual useful things I think the journey is super useful right you know what I mean yeah and I think like the being able to describe something and get an image based off of that is useful you know you know and and I and I do think artists out there that are sweating and worrying about their profession and how it will be adapted all that the day they should be right yeah awesome um yeah and I think uh I think some programmers out there are also kind of sweating but are like happy for now because like the code that that stuff generates is not 100 that great uh but who knows right maybe maybe it'll be good enough for a good starting point to accelerate people's uh productivity right so there's some usefulness there right with accelerating

people's um productivity I don't know if it replaces you know people directly you know because like it it lacks the soul and the heart that comes with creative things right right yeah that's a couple of cold lines away don't worry yeah I mean we had Adnan on for a couple of episodes ago talking about AI specifically he's with you I mean everyone I talk to that isn't an artist yeah pretty much said yeah dude it's like 60 of artists jobs they're gonna be gone just get ready poof right yeah uh students definitely have a crisis you know as they're kind of going through learning how to draw I was like you need to rethink you know how much time you want to learn how to draw into how uh versus how much time you want to put into an end product you know here's the thing about that right it's the same thing with programmers lately you know you could be like hey just learn how to use Unity or

learn how to use unreal yeah you don't need to know what a linked list is you don't need to know what memory management is yeah just just go and learn this thing make a video game and you and you're good and a lot of people have done that and a lot of people are really bad programs and they Cobble together or something and they make head games you want any means [Music] but they're making games and it's fine right it's just fine but if yeah but if you care about the crap yeah that you should also care about the foundations that build their craft right and so if you really care about it then you should learn those things so that you have a solid foundation right that all the other things are set on top you know how it works right fundamentally and just get rich first yeah so I believe and then learn how to build it correctly the second time is always better believe in the foundations I believe the foundations and I think they I think the same thing applies for for art right

like I believe in foundations too like because the foundations matter and then and then you can learn how to be an expert writer I'm there with you man I'm there with you because prompts prompts don't write themselves so you gotta think look because trust me I made I made a bunch of prompts and the images came out those images are trash and and then and that's all I guess but the folks I know that are artists trade artists art directors with eyes right they do their little thing and they're they're creating gorgeous images right because they have the the foundation still right right it does not replace there's a hack around making great prompts and it's called chat GPT and Jackie PE is way smarter than any art director that you know right be descriptive describe it like this movie all right MJ I saw somebody I saw somebody

actually do it step by step um feeding feeding telling chat how to tell chat gbt to generate the prompts for mid-journey that's what I do and the results like but the results are great like a phenomenal not even fronting right but even even the the art of figuring out the combination of things to like the combination things to generate the prompted what to tell chapter to generate yeah right it's something that I would not think of be able to do very well right now well I mean it's uh it's you know that's why you wait a little for the people to publish that and then you copy all the problems exactly what I want the thing is is like as an artist and I'm speaking from an artist's perspective of like your job is useless but I'm telling people like yo at the

end of the day you're making a piece of entertainment right it's about the end product right how you get there how messy you get there yes it'll be great to kind of go there and give you an extra Edge there's skill in this world do not discount skill no there's definitely a skill but there's skill skill into selling a product that is fun and people get it like he said there's a bunch of unity successful hit games that are poor programmers and they got there anyways I respect that more than someone who sits in a corner and just becomes the best program in the world but never really contributes to anything into the world right like oh that's a starving artist be the best program in the world you could be contributing all sorts of things no you're in a corner no one knows you uh at the end of the day you have to put something out in the world to get judged right yeah uh if you're doing something for entertainment if you're just like a wizard who wants to like die under an anonymous name or whatever fine do your thing but you know

a starving artist is not that sexy man it's like at the you know everyone has a story to tell right at least until chapter has a storytelling which it does right to to a great extent uh I think you know what is your contribution right and then work backwards from them what do I need to know to get there the fastest way possible because you know the fans want it that way right the fastest way a quality product the fastest way possible and investors Want It That Way those are the two people that you're serving at the end of the day so it it only hurts you to kind of sit there hey man you would say the same thing if a student is like luring out of the draw right now and it takes them five years to learn just as good as basically a prop it's like dude don't do that you know like what is it that you want to do you want to make a comic book do you want to you know where do you want to be you can't just be a very sharpened pencil yeah I'll say

this I already I said it already like yeah I I think like folks that understand the fundamentals in a lot of areas oh yeah it's dying right and and there will come a point in time where you we will still need to fall back on those things right and if that art is dying you know then where are you right well like I said learning how to use eating unreal yeah you need a real and there's people that work there that understand this this foundational things right when they're all dead and gone who is who is left to teach yeah yeah who's going to continue unreal Unity running right you know what I mean well hopefully chapatis is gonna be around yeah yeah like uh what is it librarian uh get up co-pilot we'll just write the code yes tell me the old ways of making games you know read me a bedtime story yes like that's not a story right all right now I got them actually actually make something yeah I think I said before like this

stuff is like a dying art you know it is and and but like I understand where you're coming from you're like yo make products I just look at the future man which is China get that bread what is Savannah doing what is China doing China they do matter but look look at China man like they're they they don't care about right and so like basically they went in fire all their artists in their little Sweatshop store and then are using Master prompters you know they're using one person replacing ten I mean the industry that we use to Outsource is already doing that right yeah so like that's a really big part of the industry right there are Outsourcing companies but but sometimes are finding shortcuts at least right now right now yeah people are doing this right like it's so obvious yeah you know and so like you

just like generate like here's the thing if you just generate it and throw it over the fence and say I'm done my job yeah you haven't done your job exactly right like using it as a starting point and painting over and embellishing and making it get that soul that is from the hand of an artist that makes way more sense to me so if you're just taking some bogus thing and like yeah it looks kind of right and then throw it over the fence and thinking people won't notice it's it's AI generator it's good enough right like we'll just end up with a lot of soulless stuff and that's fine some people just want to do that it's great stuff like that and there will always be space for somebody who's like yeah I want to put my own stamp on it and my style on it yeah always there always will be space for that right yeah maybe maybe it's not what will make all of the money or what make all the investors happy or whatever uh but there there will always be speaks for that I think yeah you and your

buddies will die by the sort of uh if the man with the money is cool with it and the and the fans of the product is basically don't even know the difference and it's an artist uh what you call it ethics problem and how how does ethics ever play you know into into game development right I mean we're kind of hearing it sometimes I only got these game developers finished their game forever right but it never really move how we make games I mean crunch culture was a thing a bit but like right now I feel like companies are still crunching especially with remote right um and and delayed gains from 2020. uh and AI seems like a solution to that like to me like you said it's a

productive it's a boost thing yeah it's a booster yeah I don't think it's gonna replace crunch all those things you're just gonna get more you just have more content because yes the the the the desire for content is never insatiable right it's it's it'll just keep going forever and ever always all want more more rocks more more detail I want to look real more and more sort of more right so yeah but sometimes you just have to say no I don't want to do more I just want to do something that looks nice I think that's an indie there's definitely like uh you know the Indie teams are definitely are boxed in all right they kind of get what where they need to be and and just put it out there yeah but the big companies are always like you said it's it's it's a it's it's the AAA companies that are always not learning from their past mistakes right like you said eight years ago we were

talking about procedural generation we're talking about all these amazing tools and uh the Outlook of it was uh that that these game Cycles will be shorter but here we are again it's kind of more expected that day one patching is a thing um bugs and glitches is is kind of like the norm right and it's it's it's it's foolish like how we started this this this podcast episode that redfall was gonna be perfect day one which was normal back then it was expected that the PS2 days the PS3 days anything less than perfect is basically a scam right so in what you're saying I agree that we've gotten more in this direction where the game is never ready game day one uh and we have more tools bigger budgets right more people than ever before

um and you're you're right in that respect like every time I may talking about AI or these new tools helping game developers I'm more thinking about the smaller teams because I mean the Innovation comes from the smaller things which I'm excited about right all the trends and stuff usually come from the smaller teams and the big guys just make that popularize it and make 100 times more money from it right um but uh yeah I don't care about the guess as much obviously there's a balance it's like a Jedi uh dark Sith thing right there's a balance of power here that always needs to be there um at least Sony's doing well and yeah Kojima once in a while you know shipping a game three years right I would be surprised if like he's doing some AI nonsense oh yeah zero projections too like like I would be

surprised in in this at least in the story time in the narrative yeah but man like all these Tech things that are happening I agree with you or uh sneakily the only one that's really doing metaverse correctly is is unreal or epic with fortnite you know they came up with fortnite creators or fortnite on for unreal yeah and that that's basically building the building blocks of a metaverse correctly and making tons of dough while doing it unlike Facebook right where they're just pulling 10 billion you know fortnite's making 10 billion dollars a year or not 10 billion a few billion dollars a year and then I mean at one point it was nine it was nine right and then meta is spending that much to make Horizons right and uh it's not going well I do want to kind of maybe you can't comment

this um supposedly AR for apple is coming out at the end of the year right and they're gonna do what they're supposed to do I'll be surprised even slightly I know they come out with tech and everyone always jumps on it it's going to be a hard sell unless they somehow make it sexy which is their thing that always finds how to make something sexy right you know I would never count them out in in anything you know right sometimes they you know sometimes they flopped things right but I would never I would never count they have more success that basically the opposite of Google they have more wins than losses yeah so what you think that's going to reinvigorate this or actually introduce a r VR to a bunch of people or no no idea no idea no idea because an accessory it's always hard to sell right you know I still think the grow arvr really huge you need

something that compelling where and just compelling to wear and it looks good and it's lightweight it'll look like a nerd right so I think I think there's a lot of it's the language thing right isn't it yeah the Babel from from Hitchhiker's Guide I mean that that's got to be the the thing that sells it to people because if I if AR Apple comes up with that and I can instantly talk to someone in a different language oh yeah yeah wouldn't that be the same kind of has that with her earbuds right um so it doesn't work it doesn't yeah yeah but yeah definitely like something like that would be like a subtitle could be game changing yeah the real the problem with the Google one is because it's audio and so you got to wait for the delay and even then when it does work it's like it's not working perfectly but with ar classes just seeing the transcription or the subtitles just like you're watching movie it just it doesn't ruin

the flow of the conversation I still think I still think like when it's when it comes to VR XR all those things I still think um AR is where it's at like a lot of even a lot of the VR devices are doing like you know pass through and things like that right so because they realize that yeah no you can't close somebody off from The Real World you have to integrate yes into the real world um that's what makes it more compelling so yeah so it's like I still stick with like AR is the thing and it's just a matter of like okay now how do we deliver it to to the masses right I think I think that's it man right now it's red house Niche right so super Niche like that you said it many times before is it it's just lacking that killer app I think it's the language thing like Google has that IR lens that you can go around and it just like automatically um friend of mine created that action yeah it translates the sign niche of stuff

really cool right but you know it's not mainstream because Google sucks at marketing their own stuff but I can see apple doing stuff like that you know you have practical use of subtitle language talking to people and then like the sign stuff reintroduce it in a very clear concise practical way in in terms of marketing and it's going to sell and then once that Gateway is open people have a bunch of these devices they're naturally going to explore just like how the iPhone did it right with games they're going to look for things to do with it and uh it's gonna open up this whole Market which was you know which sucks because no which is great but it sucks for Facebook because they lack the vision it felt like in a lot of ways sure yeah yeah that's that's why Apple's Apple but also some people think Apple has has lost its its its Vision right so its Vision we'll

see we'll see what happens yeah well supposedly Tim Cook this is his baby this is his iPhone so yeah yeah well I mean the the industry is interesting there's a lot of buzzwords going around the AI thing I haven't talked to you at length you know I kind of feel uh I understand your opinion being a programmer and you're kind of old school so you like the traditional way and you appreciate all the developers out there and stuff like that I'm there too but at the same time it's just like I'm just seeing you know the the white flag wave and like you know obviously I'm network with all these friends that are complaining who are constant Partners like yeah man we don't want to do this you know let's go on a strike but it's like dude this is not how you do it no I think I think it's weird like I think the people that don't want anything to do with it are weird yeah right and then

also I think the people that are like this is life-changing this is like I think I heard this is as big as the internet right um I might is that too far yeah I think I think that is hyperbole right oh um so so yeah I think you have to be somewhere somewhere in between of with some cautious optimism so I'm like this is helpful I see how it can increase productivity I see how it can um make make menial tasks better yeah right like um as big as the internet though I I think you're true so but maybe I'm wrong but but I don't think so no I'm there with you uh definitely this year's kind of like the nft thing it's everything it will die down uh there's a lot of tools that are going to be bust

real soon uh basically nothing no substance um and then eventually I do think there's a lasting impact to the creative industry um like you said I never seen anything catch fire so quickly um like with nft there was a lot of pause right from people trying to understand it it was confusing I think it was designed that way right he's like do you know what this is is like it was hard for me to explain right but with AI it's like dumb it was dumb right AI is way easier it needs to explain this it's very practical I can go on to Bing Ai and and use it yeah and it'll be I could see the usefulness it's very quick uh creatively I think it's already having a lasting impact I mean yeah college kids are already questioning if I should continue on their own right

it's like it's not like they had a a person like me telling them it's doomsday right they're they're arriving at these conclusions themselves yeah uh and and you can see the results and basically what do I do as companies are growing they're actually probably have to change the rules and just you know we can't license we will license we will use or not use blizzard is already publicly announcing that they're going to use AI to train on their own art to kind of help with the production right I mean I mean Stardust star stardock just released um Galactic Civilizations for Supernova yeah and as a as a feature called alien GPT which song it's it's Creator custom alien uh you do a description and then it will it'll show you images right and it was all trained on it was all trained on their own [Music] uh their past alien designs yeah that's

cool it's it's like in that case it's like it's their own art yeah and they're training it and they're giving some value to to users to to generate interesting images for their well here's the thing people are still mad at that how do you feel about that because blizzard is doing that I think it'd be silly to be bad at that well but with the blizzard thing people completely went like oh this is the end of Blizzard all good written you know that you were good but it's like you they're using their own art like I thought it was a licensing ethics problem well the part whether it gets around that problem but it's still it still has a problem of like what about the people that you hire y'all y'all y'all need to get out now thank you uh right there's there's the there's the prospect of people losing their job still um but then that you could ever stop that right automation has reduced the number of people's jobs

forever you know and and it's going to keep going keep happening and so it's just a matter of like how do you adapt to the to the new situation right um and people but people are right to be upset about that like you know you could be upset about it but then now you have to be like okay what do I do now then right well it's relative to the writer strike I know it's more a Hollywood thing that's happening right now but what a perfect opportunity to try chips but the record the writer stuff is even more messed up right because yeah because there's the PNC they see it a mile away that the studios are gonna be like you know I'm utilizing PT this entire script and it's going to be gibberish and I'm gonna give it to a writer to actually to edit it down yeah and that's that's just a miserable existence right like that's not what's up you know um and so yeah they're gonna they're gonna fight for that you know be like no like we still need to write this stuff like let me decide don't you don't you right use chat

it's so dumb right like the only industry that is able to kind of fight this is the music industry because they've been primed I don't even know have you seen any I heard yeah but they took it down immediately yeah but as soon as it's not making any money from he's not trying to sell it or anything right um they've been they've been striking it down the likeness of it like it's like uh they're they're equating it to like uh um uh identity theft you know there's there the music industry is better equipped to tackle these things since Napster they they have yeah I feel like instruments and tools in place to kind of like jump at things faster than any of these any other industry um especially ours um so I feel like music wise because you know there are obviously AI generative

I'm you know I knew I know of some that got shut down immediately when they were trying to sample all these licensed music and and to create basically you know good pop music right shut down immediately like you don't hear anything about music um even though that's like the easiest thing to do right now because they're all kind of so it's seven notes right yeah well some of this Android stuff is to love but but um but you know actually I kind of respect the the the AI music stuff because it's it's at least I believe how entertaining is still well somebody's writing it right somebody's actually writing their apps and going okay let me now feed this through the algorithms to make voice synthesizer make it sound like Drake and and time it correctly you know uh so like some of the actual content is still pretty pretty fire oh yeah but but it's it's it also I think it also shows like

um maybe maybe uh Drake's music is pretty formulaic and the all popular music are former Lake and soulless that's why it's like a great AI sample so what we can do things replace all pop music we just yeah but like they they are better equipped to kind of fight against it because they know how to do it all right they'll strike it down I don't think it will go as Haywire as all these other industry right there's no Fighting Chance that concept artists will band together and ban AI none with music though they'll get it done right is what I'm saying um I think it will go around along the wrap of deep fakes you know for movies they just hired the guy iom just fired the guy it's like oh you do really you do this really well we hire you right so I think Drake is gonna hire that guys yo I don't wanna come up with things they're going to utilize it as a tool it's like yo

instead of me trying to come up with like a room full of writers it's like can I just hire the nerd generate something that I sound good in and I'll just wrap over that you know they'll use it as a tool and I'll make millions you know that's definitely why they're stopping because they're they're business-wise they're trying to make it legal you know like Drake is not mad at it he's like yo I can use this he's smart enough yeah all of them are thinking that it's like how do I hire that because that's the future um I gotta stop this now this is the same thing with Elon Musk it's like let's let's pause for six months and then he went off to make his own AI company like all of them are thinking like that yeah that's the smart way to do it right they know it's it's coming um there's gonna be endless amount of AI synthesizer rapping but you know they can stop the bleeding and license it own

it right because I think there is something that you can license your own voice or your likeness I mean there's literally companies sell let that go up to celebrities like let me license your your likeness for AI and maybe license it and so now when you're doing YouTube stuff you're you're kind of um uh what do you call it violating uh their licensing rights yeah to AI likeness so I know that's happening so yeah we don't have any of that yeah normal walk well uh estate is not it's not coming after mid-journey all right there's no artists suck man we suck we're always in solitude there's no Union or anything of any threat that's why we always that seems to be slowly changing in the video game it's like slowly every every day

all right maybe every month I hear about some new Union that's too slow it's too slow um but it's Skynet will be here by then by the time that we have some power will be in The Matrix and then we'll live in our fantasy world of oh we actually have power to do any of this stuff but uh anyways uh that that that sums up an hour man um there was a lot of topic when we went over obviously I just want to catch up and get your thoughts on it um I'm sure there's a lot more you know uh Microsoft versus Bethesda or or EA is going to release a game sometime so we'll be able to kind of as much as I hate them because I'm probably buying star fuel yeah so we'll see I haven't really seen any promotions for that is it starting to look like no they have to show they showed something and I

was like I don't know but um does it look better than star citizens well yeah it actually exists but no but um but but people saw what they did show and and some like hardcore defensive folks were like going going crazy right so yeah we'll see man so is that the biggest game this year star Phil it's like 10 years in the making right in terms of expectation and hype yeah definitely yeah why I hope for me it's for me it's a street fighter but you know yeah it is oh I hope it it goes well yeah you don't want anything that ends up in the round table never it never is a good thing I realized we never really celebrate you know the positive it's always me well you always defend you know you're more optimistic than I am but hey man kind of hating I was kind of hating on AI this

time but anyway yeah no I think you you have like the probably the safest most realistic stance on it the like we've obviously I mean I tried to bring people on it's the biggest topic to talk about and uh it was pretty extreme one you know one extreme is like it's I'm all for it the other Extreme's like I'm all against it but I think you're the only one that I've talked to that's actually realistically in the middle which is where where I am you know I'm using it it feels like an assistant it helps me they'll get through the day uh in very practical ways and I think everyone should do it I mean it's free on Bing if you don't want to use chat especially when you're scrubby like yourself and you need that help like it really helps a lot like it helps polish me yeah I feel human to be presentable on the internet yeah hey man I'm all about uh getting help dude all right well thank you everyone for

joining us for Round Table see you guys sometime in the future Beats Beats [Music]