Post

Stuff like this always seems to bring out the people who never tried to start their own creative business.

Hi. Game dev. Extremely true.

"Nah, bra, just Kickstart it! You'll make bank, bra!"

They could just do a Kickstarter! Ignore the fact that already having a fully functional demo is the bar for entry now.

I wish my game developer friends weren’t leaving the local area

Hey hey. It’s me, a Game dev who lost his job. It’s true. :(

shitty yes, but not undeserved

Tipping your uber driver an extra $5 because it turns out they helped write the character your parents named you after.

I’m actually too exhausted to even use the Aquaman gif.

Actually said young female celebrities should be allowed to kill any and all male creeps who attempt to impose themselves on them. And to be fair 12 Gauge is a good way to deal with 4chan incels who dont say "woman" but "foid".

then gotta love how some people actually do manage to breach the veil and publish an indie game only for the "we want simpler games with worse graphics and im NOT kidding" crowd to turn around and call it slop 🤪

Starting a studio after a layoff only works if rent is already covered. Most people do not have that runway.

Yeah the market for indies is super optimistic with AI slop factories dumping out garbage that shovelware and asset flippers could have only dreamed of a decade ago. Easy market to break out of these days.

If AdHoc and Dispatch are any indication, Critical Role money? If TellTale refugees can do it, BioWare refugees can too... oh, I'm now hearing some of them have already been taken in by North Mist Studios? (I have no idea who NMS are.)

like there's nothing "bright" about being laid off hello 😭

The unfortunate truth is that a lot of them are going to exit the industry just to survive and take institutional knowledge with them that we will not get back. Even if they CAN go indie, odds are in this landscape that delays that inevitable exit. The chances of success are very, very miniscule.

Hear me out guys… I think I know a way we can get some funding. We just need to find out when the next steam locomotive is headed don the transcontinental.

"maybe [other giant corporate suit] can buy the rights to the IP and–"

one of the few bad things that resulted from Clair Obscur is the constant navel-gazing about AAA expats breaking into the indie scene as though they're building a couch fort

"Just do a kickstarter, bro" :D

You can definitely work and be creating a game in the free time with constant terminal burnout to make money to create a studio

People have to realize than if an indie game is successful, only one person get paid, and for a corpo game, multiple people get paid/exploited, until the game is out, then everybody get fired

This doesn't take away from OP's point at all but to answer your question specifically, it's probably because indie game studios are actually a common thing that exists.

Oddly enough I have heard someone propose, essentially, an indie drop-shipping company. They were advised against it.

They were in the 90s during dialup. My first ISP was a mom and pop. But yeah, not for a long time.

It's like if your favorite sandwich restaurant closed down and people respond by saying "well at least you can make your own sandwich"

Devs don’t need to pay rent or buy groceries, they just make games for the love of it, exposure, and to be yelled at endlessly by players* who are mad at every single design decision that doesn’t focus on their singular happiness, donchaknow?

I saw someone say this about the layoffs but specifically about A.I. I don't know if it was a bot or a burner account (as there were zero original posts on the profile), but it was an instant block.

think they are envisioning another clair obscure moment. sometimes there is a fine line between emotional support and toxic positivity.

I know. I know it's hard. I know it's expensive. But we have to try, right? Because we still have each other, right?? I say as I keep putting myself out there to do freelance work but rarely get any bites Right???

Reminds me of how bad video game funding is , Look even Ikumi Nakamura is begging at Elon Musk for some money

Like here I am! I'm giving the indie thing a go! But I can only do it because I don't have debts to pay off at the moment. Anyone with student loans or car payments or a mortgage is on their own.

*very* few are taking risky bets on original IP, and now everyone is going after the same established IPs that need an arm and a leg to secure and a solid network that can get people in touch with agents. there's not a lot of money anymore, or risk takers and backers. funding is insanely rough rn

The number of times I’ve had to explain to people that making games requires funding and we can’t just “get scrappy and do it” when we have rent and mortgages and families to feed and clothe and kids in school and higher gas prices and… anyway… I just want to make games.

Amazing, you're doing the thing.

This is a lie. I've purchased games from studios that split off and individuals who made their own games. I've even purchased game art and games just because the teams are amazing and not supported by vulture companies. We arecyour friends.

It's also, by design, incredibly difficult to do it. Most people can't name a single person who actually works at a game studio. It's just "bioware" as a monolith. With so many layoffs how are we supposed to even attempt to help support all these people who's names we don't even know?

Yeah like if these fuckos didn’t hold all the FUNDING this wouldn’t be an ISSUE

Is it bad that this made me laugh?

getting killed by a gamedev.... what a way to go

I really hate hwo some people think that money just falls from the sky.

shitty, perhaps, but richly deserved

"I'm sorry the bank you worked your teller job at closed, maybe you should open your own bank?"

I mean, let's assume they all do have just enough funding to make a game as an indie studio. How many of those games will be successful? Great, you've put your savings into Display Manufacturer Simulator RPG 2000. No one bought it. Now you're bankrupt and have to go on SNAP just to eat. Awesome.

Being a game dev for a big company is nice because you can just focus on the game. Starting an indie studio requires so many skillsets in order to stand out in such a saturated market. Better to just get a regular dev job.

Maybe we just don't deserve new videogames

If anyone here has been laid off from a studio, share your portfolio or what you do in the replies. Signal boosting helps more than advice.

Life would certainly be better if independent creators of any type had access to a giant ever filling pot of money but alas we do not live in a society