Assassin’s creed is definitely not a system seller at all. It hasn’t been one for a very long time.
[PS5/XBS] Grand Theft Auto VI - Market Watch [Trailer in the OP, PS5/XBX|S, 2025]
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When games take this long, it causes some really bad prolongation issues and you get stuck on one project forever. Right now, the workers are essential because they know first-hand the inner workings of the game, so they are holding the studio hostage because they can't remove them, but I am certain that after this game, Rockstar will re-evaluate the people who were serious or not on this project, because this can't go on.
If Rockstar wants their games to take less time to develop then they need to reduce scope, but that will never happen. In fact, the scope is likely to go way up as GTAVI will not just be a Grand Theft Auto game but will also incorporate many elements from Red Dead Redemption 2.
It wont be a disaster since it's a niche product anyway. People seem to be putting too high hopes. Look to PS4 Pro/Xbox One X. IIRC they were around 15% of respective hardware sales. I honestly dont think PS5 Pro needs any particular software. That said I suspect they'll delay it to 2025 as rumored for the same reason GTA looks to be, because always bet the delay in videogames.
Blaming the workers and not the fact that you scoped your game so it takes eleventy bajillion years is peak c-suit
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In Europe? Definitely untrue. Valhalla was beyond huge. Only FIFA or COD can compare.
Besides the shift will happen with the first non-crossgen COD and Assassins Creed. If both are this year then atleast for PS the holiday season will be successful.
Wasn't PS4 Pro around 10-15% of the total? I don't think a possible much more expensive PS5 Pro should move so many units.
The next GTA should only think about itself, not about console X or Y. It is likely that R* will do the same as V and launch it in several generations. I don't think it's difficult to imagine it coming out at the end of 2025, or even the end of 2026.
And what would be the reason to believe that no one does remote work seriously?
The next GTA should only think about itself, not about console X or Y. It is likely that R* will do the same as V and launch it in several generations. I don't think it's difficult to imagine it coming out at the end of 2025, or even the end of 2026.
And what would be the reason to believe that no one does remote work seriously?
Scoping out? what does that even mean in this context? it's creative work on a large scale, if a good portion of the workers refuse to come to work and it affects the project, then you should blame the workers. And I can guarantee you that the people who do are furious at the people who don't. Remote workers are messing up for the people showing up too.
Work synergy on massive projects like this is greatly affected by in-person work. I understand that it's easier to work from home and who wouldn't want that, and there are exceptions where it's useful, but when the workplace is screaming for people to come back to increase productivity, then you have to respect the project and do what's best for the game. Showing up at work is a basic responsibility and accountability. If the job was fine with people working at home that's one thing, but people getting used to working at home from covid and using the union to stop the workplace from reverting back to normal is unserious and childish.
Let me see if I understand your point. The poor company can't develop something well due to greed, childishness and the worker's desire for self-valuation?
Are you really serious?
In-person work did not generate enough synergy for countless games to end disastrously. What defines the quality, speed and good development of a game is not where the worker is, but the team's ability to deal with adverse situations.
Are you really serious?
In-person work did not generate enough synergy for countless games to end disastrously. What defines the quality, speed and good development of a game is not where the worker is, but the team's ability to deal with adverse situations.
you seem to understand scoping already so no need to go further into that.
but you conflate remote work with lesser quality work. you're working off of assumptions that corporate is always right with respect to work location and seem to be ignoring the problems the return to office mandates have caused (which is just dog whistle for mass layoffs)
Because of all the crunch work problems and the talk around it, people have adopted an attitude that workers are always right versus the corporate in the gaming industry, which simplifies complex situations and is not always correct. If you are hired remotely to do remote work and told that's your job, then that's one thing, but when you are expected to work on a project together with other people, it's completely natural to assume you need to come to the workplace at almost all costs. Truthfully, we don't know the inner workings of this situation, but when the job has to beg for people to come back to work, something has gone terribly wrong.
"The poor company can't develop well due to greed, childishness, and the worker's desire for self-valuation?" I have no idea what that sentence means or implies.
That some old games that were developed totally in-person and ended up being bad games has no point in this context.
Where the worker is located will impact quality, speed, and development. It will depend on the project how much, but social interactions are different in person, by a lot, and people hold each other responsible in a different way when they are next to you. Remote work also increases the Pareto Principle problems.
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I get that adopting a "workers are always right" attitude isn't always good thing because the situations can be more complex than "worker good, publisher bad". Bungie and BioWare have shown this, where the problem laid with leadership at the studios rather than the corporations publishing their work.
But just because people dont want to go back to taking a commute to work doesnt mean that they aren't serious about what they're working on. Most of them are, and they wanna work in a place where they're both more comfortable working and less liable to be crunched and overworked just to meet a somewhat arbitrary deadline. That's not even getting into the extremely likely possibility of Rockstar following the trend most of the industry has been going in and laying off a good chunk of it's workers once GTAVI is done. I can guarantee you that if it does happen, it'll be irregardless of whether or not the mandate is enforced.
We dont know the inner workings of the situation, sure, but we do know some of the inner workings of RDR2 development, and by many accounts it wasn't pretty:
Now working conditions are supposed to be better than they were for RDR2 due to the negative publicity surrounding the work culture, which despite the reasoning is ultimately a good thing. I just hope they're good in general. Also if the job is begging for people to come back to work, is it truly because something has gone wrong, or is it because the company really wants to get this game out in 2025 to satisfy investors and shareholders? We truly don't know. Yes, you have to release the game sometime soon, but it's Grand Theft Auto VI, it's a guaranteed success regardless of when it comes out. And Rockstar is already known for delaying their games anyways, so why rush it?
I feel like every Rockstar release has been delayed at least 6 months past the initial announced date so no wonder they only said 2025.
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I personally believe that the gaming industry thrives on crunching the hell out of its workers, and from my experience it is certainly easier to drive forced productivity like that in-person. If you're in a studio physically and everyone around you is working 12 hour days, you're incentivized to match their pace. It's the bandwagon effect which can be quite powerful at times.
Rockstar management simply wants to retain more control over their workers, which is easier to do in-person when they can crunch them more.
Working in offices for game development is not only about crunch, i think companies like Nintendo quickly returned to work in offices after covid lockdowns and are in fact now building new development buildings because they believe developers working together on a game in the same building are more effective than everyone working from home permanently.
Also if you want to build and mantain a specific culture at your game studio working from home is against that kind of spirit, it becomes less cohesive.
Also if you want to build and mantain a specific culture at your game studio working from home is against that kind of spirit, it becomes less cohesive.
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Dunno how much "culture" really gets added, as that's often thinly-veiled doublespeak used by execs to justify crunch.
I will say though that Japanese corps have often used more traditional processes that lend to in-office work (like how Anime studios would still draw characters on paper), although a lot of that has been modernized due to COVID-19.
And, working in an office is indeed helpful if you're a corp like Nintendo who needs to maintain extremely strict security in an isolated environment to mitigate any chance of a leak.
Working from home increases the distribution of a project substantially, which can lead to issues like how GTA VI was leaked last December by Aaron Garput (co-studio head and art director at Rockstar North), through a friend of his son who was stupidly bragging about it. I'm sure Rockstar is more keen to take any approach they can to lock down their dev environments moving forward.
From a business perspective though, controlling your workers to enable crunch is the most poignant reason for a return to office.
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There is a reason that despite the games’ enormous popularity Digital Foundry never does coverage of games like FC/FIFA, Madden, and 2K games. That audience is not the one for pixel counting and marginal graphic differences.
It's not just about crunch, pushing the game out, or releasing earlier, it's also about developing culture and relationships through the team, about showing things to people in person, and getting to know people.
There are a lot of bad consequences of letting people stay at home that manifest over time.
And yes, management needs to see and judge the workers too, they need to know who is working and who is not.
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When I mentioned Sony is in shambles, I was talking about the PS5 Pro, as it won't have any big first party game and neither GTA by the looks of it. What will push the sales of the system? I doubt people who buy COD/FIFA/AC games every year will upgrade for those games, as those are not type of games that sell Pro revisions and these are usually not the type of crowd that would even buy a more powerful and expensive machine just for those games.
Sony needs a big, stunning, successful, ambitious, and most importantly, massive scale (open world) game to sell the Pro. For PS4 Pro, they had Horizon: Zero Dawn. For PS5 Pro, they have already announced they don't have one in the oven for the FY they are planning to release the Pro, so if they were counting on GTA for that, they are in trouble now.
Maybe they should just "delay" the Pro until either they have a first game ready for it, or they know the final release date for GTA VI.
PS5 Pro doesn't need any one or two big system-selling titles, as long as there are a bunch of games that receive proper Pro updates, then it will do fine.
I do find it a bit worrying that so many seem to pinning the health of the industry on the success of GTAVI. The game itself will be nothing short of a juggernaut but it ain't saving the entire industry.
I do find it a bit worrying that so many seem to pinning the health of the industry on the success of GTAVI. The game itself will be nothing short of a juggernaut but it ain't saving the entire industry.
I think PS5 Pro will be even more niche than PS4 Pro and people interested will buy regardless of any particularly game.
About GTA VI saving the industry, it's not like the game will be capable of bring to the console market a significant amount of consumers that currently are out, so will not save anything, just generate a ton of money for Take2.
About GTA VI saving the industry, it's not like the game will be capable of bring to the console market a significant amount of consumers that currently are out, so will not save anything, just generate a ton of money for Take2.
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The notion of GTA6 being the savory of the industry is both really silly and extremely dangerous. Its launching well past the halfway point of the PS5 and Series life cycles. Its gonna sell systems, but I have to imagine the bulk of GTA6 day 1 buyers or even year 1 buyers are people who already own either a PS5 or Series when it releases. Even with GTA6, consoles are still likely remain stagnate at best compared to last gen. As for investments, it will certainly get investors on board with Take-Two, but could have a knock on of investors wanting other companies to create a GTA6 like success. Which is near impossible and that is if GTA6 causes investors to invest in the industry as a whole.
‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ Delay Report Spurs Overblown Concern
In reality, video games are always behind schedule and risk getting delayed at any time
www.bloomberg.com
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is there any sales data on how GTAV sold between PlayStation and Xbox? Seeing how Xbox is on life support in many markets and declining in their biggest market I do wonder if Rockstar has taken Switch 2 into account In developing the game. It should blow past the Series consoles in less than 2 years
Sony will surely keep the 1-year exclusivity so as not to release it on PC or Nintendo Switch 2.
Once the exclusivity passes, they can be released first on PC and then possibly on Nintendo Switch 2.
At the same time, it allows Rockstar Games to have several communication times like Hogwarts Legacy.
I don't think Schreier's report tells us anything new outside of giving us more insight into the contention regarding Rockstar's RTO mandates. It doesn't confirm or deny Kotaku's reporting other than basically saying "of course AAA games are always behind schedule", and that a delay (were it to happen) shouldn't surprise anyone considering which studio it is we're talking about.
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Does Sony even have the money to make GTAVI a 1 year exclusive? Exclusive marketing I can see but not console exclusive as I see that R wants to reach as many people as possible
If there is any game that will sell huge numbers even on Xbox, it's GTAVI.
Sony will have the right to make bundles and have exclusive content like with Hogwarts Legacy.
Obviously those who know nothing about video games will believe that the only way to play GTA VI will be to have a PS5.
GTA VI is a seller system, releasing on PS & XB already allows for big sales figures because its fanbase is in the West.
The choice of PC and Nintendo Switch 2, I think it comes from Sony's conditions.
Wait, are people really think that Sony is preventing R* to not release GTAVI on PC and possible Switch 2 day one? I mean, Really?
We’ve yet to see the Switch 2 specs, but I really doubt R* will consider it to release GTAVI on it.
We’ve yet to see the Switch 2 specs, but I really doubt R* will consider it to release GTAVI on it.
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GTAVI will never release on Switch 2, but Sony could make the PC port come later at least if they go hard on making that happen.
If GTA VI can release on Switch 2, I'm sure it will. Rockstar put the GTA Trilogy on Switch even though the physical version required an additional download and it ran like a 60 year old that sleeps with a pack of Marlboros each night (to be fair it ran terribly everywhere, but especially so on Switch). That version sold pretty great in spite of it being far from the best way to play it. And Rockstar's put L.A Noire and Red Dead 1 on the Switch as well. If that rumour's to be believed, they tried to get RDR2 on the system too. Rockstar clearly sees the value in having a Switch version so the idea of them passing up on the opportunity to port the game seems unlikely.
I think they will basically port over GTAV and RDR2 to the Switch 2, if GTAV then sells fine on the Switch 2 maybe, if possible they will try to port over GTAVI years after initial release to the Switch 2. We don't even know if the game will be able to run on the Switch 2 though.
Rockstar will cut support for the current GTA Online in favor of the new GTA Online once GTAVI launches, porting GTAV to Switch 2 would be pointless unless it's a budget title like last year's RDR1 port for Switch/PS4 (which contained the base story mode + Undead Nightmare DLC, with the online mode cut out).
Well GTAV and RDR2 are the only realistic ports. If GTAV is removed that leaves RDR2 as the only port they will do to Switch 2.