I’m not sure. I didn’t see indication that it does.
It’s not smart for video games when they take 4-6 years in development now.
THE ELDER SCROLLS VI CONFIRMED???!!!
4 Likes
It feels like they bought those publishers and kept them limited due to the contracting laws for internal studios. Which is a shrewd move.
Surely, but MS has been highlighted and called out for it by multiple devs, seems apparent that it affects AAA games uniquely because of their long dev time, and MS has hiring limits that make that a worse problem than it should.
From one story, they had no problem supporting $100m budget for Lost Odyssey which is huge for that time, but the studio had to work within hiring limits…
Not saying I like the policies, but HR’s job is to protect the company and I don’t think the nature of game development is going to change that. If the policy is going to exist, I feel like the best move would be to use support studios and contract work out during the surges instead of hiring contractors.
I’ll never understand the Lost Odyssey thing. I don’t know why the headcount would matter, lol. It’s not like they were even MS employees.
1 Like
Seriously though, I hope we can finally see something from Perfect Dark.
Gameplay from Compulsion’s game is absolutely a possibility, Zenimax Online Studios?
1 Like
The best move would be to hire the contractors that would keep the development as smooth as possible, and whose firing would cause a delay in the pipeline. Especially the contactors who have to learn the engine and tools.
1 Like
Sure, but that’s ignoring that game development does not require consistent staffing through the entire development and they likely don’t want the burden of having that many full time staff.
2 Likes
Would using only one engine help in that case? Let’s say, how about if all of (or most of) MS gaming studios using UE5 from now on?
No, that’s not the issue.
That probably helps a bit as you can bring in contractors that are already familiar with a lot of UE pipelines, we didn’t hear about issues from the studios working on UE now that you mention it, only the ones with proprietary engines.
? It’s a big part of it, when you have contractors that you walked through your proprietary engine, and then they leave 18 months in, only you to bring in new contractors and have to teach them again… that’s a lot of time and efficiency lost, and it’s been a highlighted part of the issue.
2 Likes
It’s not a big part of the issue because there are much more bigger factors like work culture, human resources, benefits etc. when it comes to the contractor issue. Moreso than any engine. And everyone in the industry doesn’t know how to use UE lol. and who says it’s neccesarily easier to learn than whatever proprietary engine a studio is using.
So no, it’s not the issue and I think most game devs would agree.
It’s only what’s been described by reports and from what some devs said. Not that everyone knows UE, but it’s definitely a bigger pool of talent available to contract that would be familiar with it more easily than proprietary engines.
1 Like
I think it is. People should be hired to make a specific task and leave when it is done, not on prespecified duration length. The guy in the video had to leave 1 week before release. Considering the needed work then and after on the track modeling, it is just a stupidity to let him go.
Microsoft has many games that require constant updating. Your remark makes sense for studios where only single player games are produced, but for studios like 343, Turn 10 and equivalent, they need staff to produce contents all the time and the bad state of their games at launch and after can/could be tied to this contractor issue.
Bottom line: MS is not changing it’s contractor policy unless it affects it’s bottom line in a major way (it’s not). And furthermore, these studios aren’t choosing proprietary engines because it’s just all they know, it’s because they have institutional knowledge of their own engines and it best fits their games.
As a web developer I can vouch for that. A well established and documented technology will always be easier for new hires than a private one.
New guys can use their existing knowledge instead of learning something that only exists in that company. Also a thousand times easier to troubleshoot since it’s a known technology and you can easily find information on the internet.
1 Like
I don’t think the argument was to make the studios abandon their engines, no. Just that they really need to work around this somehow because it affects some of their studios and games. I realize it’s probably asking too much for the policy to change just for Xbox, but then either extend the studios’ hiring abilities, or come up with some other solution, I don’t know. Because now two of their AAA studios tied with legacy IP have had development disruption due to that policy.
Also as a carrer plan, learning a proprietary engine is a waste of time for future jobs. Learning a proprietary engine in a company that does not plan to keep you is a double waste of time.
1 Like