TeeHallums

Split Fiction, Doom The Dark Ages, MK World, DK Bananza, ER Nightreign, Yotei, Silent Hill F, Dying Light, the Oblivion remaster, Gaiden 4, Outer Worlds 2, South of Midnight, Avowed, just to name a few. These are all of course *concurrent* with the myriad of great midsize and small studio games.

See, i think THAT is totally fair!

Though i think maybe some of your perceptions of how gamedev is structured, paid out, and monetized may be *slightly* misinformed, just *generally* disliking those fundamental issues (separate from the price discussion) is totally valid!

Insane skill issue, unfortunately. 2025 is one of the most insanely, bountifully lush years for gaming EVER. Same for 2024, tbh.

Why support that at $70, then? Or $60? Or $40?

If you know me, you should know im the last one to defend capitalistic interests and models. So know this is not a "capitalism good. make more money good." perspective.

Literally everyone at the studio benefits from higher net profit.

Yeah, C levels and publishers benefit the most, which sucks.

But you know what else sucks? Job precarity, stagnant wages, and being laid off if one game doesnt do well. Better margins mitigate all of those remarkably.

I fear you didn't really understand the point Ajay is making

Well... sure. I certainly wont deny that. But at this point we're having a very different conversation than "$100 game bad" haha

Note: This does not hold true in Japan. But if were starting a JP Gamedev hate train, thats a WHOLE other conversation (that im far more down with)

I am not sure where you got the impression that most gamedevs are paid pennies? Maybe QA. And obviously they make less there than if they used their skillset in, say, big webdev. Or some other enterprise sector.

But by and large, gamedevs in most departments are compensated fairly decently to well

Even then, a *relatively* narrow subsection of AAA games. AKA the set of publishers that aggressively values ship date over all else.

As for "nickel and diming", I really only see aggressive MTX strategies in FTP games, so 🤷

Sure, there are other games outside of that that are initially releasing with some specific things awry, that often get fixed a month or so in. Especially in the era of Shader Cache Stutter, and its difficulties.

But largely, almost ALL games are releasing feature complete.

Honestly? This perception that games are constantly released unfinished and full of nickel and diming is really only limited to a VERY small section of the entire industry.

I hate to play the "gamers only play games with ball and gun", but that really is the only place where that truly applies

This is absolutely true, and why
a) i think $100 base price is a BAD idea
b) am a big supporter of tighter games with shorter dev cycles

that they, in fact, CAN increase prices and the market will bare it. So there's a lot of elements at play.

Do I personally think $100 base price will be wise in terms of net revenue for companies? No, I think $80 is probably the limit rn.

But do I think its evil or even unreasonable? No!

And as I state in the Twitter thread, if game prices adjusted with inflation, theyd be *over* $100 right now.

NOW. Having said all that, I do still think of course there are elements of corporate greed, insanely inflated C level pay, and even a sort of domino effect where they're figuring out

times. We arent making games in 2 years across 80 employees anymore. Theyre being made in 4-8 years across 200-2000 employees. There is just factually, unavoidably only so much that can be done to avoid increasing base costs.

On game companies. MTX, DLC, etc have all been forces that have helped stave off increasing game costs. But things are finally changing in large part because their patching effects are no longer holding off the cracking dam.

Cost of production for games has skyrocketed, as have development times..

x.com/TeeHallums/s...

I kindly implore you to read through this thread I did a few months ago on the topic.

I totally, 100% respect the view that wages are so stagnant that gaming as a hobby has become more difficult. But the onus of that problem is on the government (and our bosses), not...

YouTube video by TeeHallums The Perfect Game's One Big Flaw (Feat. Outer Wilds Creative Director Alex Beachum)

First time I've ever made a video like this, but getting the opportunity to interview Alex Beachum, THE creative director of Outer Wilds, meant I *had* to give it my all.

Hope at least some of yall enjoy!

youtu.be/msABa06aiT0?...

You gotta post their reactions to finding out!!

Just FYI im blocking you for your nazi name, not because youre on some blocklist

slow.pics/c/cnEL38WF

Comparison for anyone curious

(Surprise 3 of 3) Theres a lot to like about BSKY in its current state. Starter packs, blocklists, custom feeds like the "followers" feed, and so on are all really great innovations.

Im just... im just waiting for them to sort out the rest! Cmon team, iron out that UX!

Even those limitations aside, there are a lot of UI/UX stuff left to be situated. This on in particular really perplexes me because it is NOT difficult to fix lol.

Some posts in a thread highlight on mouseover, and some dont. When BSKY launched, even the menu elements on the left didnt highlight.

I've been hesitant to do anything in BSKY. And its not because I enjoy every reply section being filled with blue checkmark morons elsewhere, but... this site just hasnt ironed out all its kinks yet!

To be fair, this image compression issue is less a kink and more a present limitation, but...(1/2)

For the sake of comparison, uploaded the same on twitter. Obviously still plenty of reduction, but 3x the filesize of the Bsky upload! Literally 4x the resolution over on Twitter!

Good heavens, not very! 55MB down to 1MB.

6824x9924 down to 1346x2000!

Now, to be fair, storage is expensive. But still, thats surprisingly restrictive!

Sure but how high of a resolution can Bluesky handle