/Thread - 12/8/23
Missed a week. Let's catch up!
Greetings, traveler, and welcome to /Thread, a weekly roundup of what’s happening in the game industry, for game industry professionals, just like you.
Today’s Densely Daily Dosage
Some game about cars I think is coming out. Yeah GTA 6 is a thing. It’s gonna be out in 2025. The trailer, which you’ve seen, is pretty badass.
Publisher does not enjoy paying creators. Creators get mad. Mike Rose, founder of indie publisher No More Robots, found himself on the receiving end of the internet’s ire after sharing his opinion on paying YouTubers for coverage: “It feels weird and icky and disingenuous, and I just can't do it.” It’s a microcosm of the weird, profoundly commodified content creator ecosystem, and our cofounder Chris gave it some in-depth analysis over on the business website. Be sure to like, share & subscribe!
Crawl, walk, and run your way to a not-dead game. In talks with clients & friends recently, we’ve often found ourselves theorycrafting about how publishing can best help early stage studios validate their game’s 1,000-hour potential. And oh, do we have thoughts on the subject.
The chrome’s all burned out. Cyberpunk 2077 received its last major update, version 2.1, since we last spoke. It marks a capstone on one of the few good stories in games this year: CDPR rebounded from a disastrous console launch, slowly improved the game, and release a huge free update before Phantom Liberty that arguably delivered on the game’s promise almost a full three years after I bought a 3080 to be able to play at launch. It was a very good game that became a great one.
Starfield: It’s the players who are wrong! Bethesda took to the Steam reviews section to argue with players who said the game feels shallow and repetitive. A lot of the developer responses looked like canned answers to common complaints, and likely didn’t win hearts and minds. As of this writing, more people on Steam are playing Skyrim than Starfield, which isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison, but still not a comparison anyone expected to see just a few months after the game’s massive launch.
“Some of Starfield’s planets are meant to be empty by design - but that's not boring.” - Something someone at Bethesda actually said. Twitch leaves Korea. Citing extremely high networking costs, Twitch announced they’re exiting the Korean market beginning February 2024. The company claims it will help streamers move to alternative sources, but I haven’t seen further details on what that means.
By The Numbers
$50MM - The size of Riot’s social impact fund.
51,662 - The number of years players have spent in Baldur’s Gate 3. So far.
Looking For More
Brought to you by our friends at gamejobs.co
Zenimax (Maryland, USA) - Machine Learning Research Engineer
Jackbox (Chicago) - Partnerships Lead
Amazon (San Diego) - Senior Technical Animator
Better Know An Indie
Heliophobia is a first-person horror/mystery adventure presented through a surreal, non-linear narrative. You awake on a vacant plane, given only a singular task: kill the one with the initials "J.R." Grab it on Steam for $9.99.
Have a Great Weekend
As always, thanks for stopping by. We’ll see you next week!