I’m aware, though these days it’s more like published by heavily “Yeah I’ve played games, I was the best at pong in elementary school” shareholder influenced publishers and devs that make totally out of touch decisions and then lay off all the staff that were responsible for anything in the game considered good right after the game gets bad press.
I would assume so by now. Valve patched it initially for Linux users via proton but I remember my windows friends complaining about it when the game released. The last time they played to assist another friend who had just started was when the arena update came out and I didn’t hear any complaining then. If they still have it with the dlc coming soon I’d be surprised. On previous titles I would expect them to stop patching after the dlc has been out for a bit, but they did patch the previous titles a while after elden ring came out when someone found a critical security flaw in the network code that affected all of them.
Am a professional game developer I can guarantee you that the quality of the code base of the average AAA game is no better than a small studio. It’s at times a lot worse, it’s just got better documentation or a bigger knowledge base. I hear the current call of duty engine is a nightmare to work on.
They can’t strip it out cos it’s the foundation of the engine, and I know they still use some form of the original engine so it’s probably still there.
Well, this may not actually be the case. 7 or so years ago FromSoftware was pretty notoriously known to Japanese workers in the gaming industry to have very harsh working conditions, even among other Japanese studios that also have harsh conditions. Allegedly programmers at FromSoftware at that time were making an annual salary of only $27k USD. Compare this with Konami, who was paying an annual salary of $40k USD for the same position.
Its possible in the last 7 years things might have changed, but Japanese companies are usually very resistant to change. Japanese work culture honestly sucks, I would never want to.live in Japan because of this.
EDIT: You can see here that the overall worker satisfaction rating for FromSoftware is only 2.8 out of 5, which seems to be nearly the same as it used to be.
NOTE: Some readers may see something about the “Whiteness/Blackness” of the company. This has nothing to do with race or racism. This is a slang term from Japanese culture that refers to how ethical a company is. A company that is very unethical (overworking employees, borderline illegal treatment of employees, etc) is called a “Black Company,” and everyone will tell you to avoid them. Conversely a “White Company” would be a very ethical company and one that everyone would be fighting each other to work for.
Well, I wouldn’t call From a Black Company. 2.4 White rating is almost exactly in the middle.
A real Black Company would be something like the V-Tuber Agency Wactor (and more recently maybe Nijisanji). This company has engaged in behaviour that is legitimately abusive to its employees, to the point that nearly all of its liver talents have quit.
For Black Companies, it is most common that there is bullying or some other kind of abuse from higher ups, as well as threats of disrepute if the abused employees quit voluntarily. This doesn’t seem to be the case with FromSoftware. Just that they don’t pay overtime because it is considered voluntary (incredibly common among Japanese companies) and pay below industry average.
Yes, but in Japan the large majority of businesses are Japanese, and most conform to the expected conditions of underpaying or not paying for overtime (“voluntary overtime”), etc.
Just like there can be some companies that do the same thing in the USA, though it is not.common because there are laws specifically to prevent that.
It’s rare for employees to move companies in Japan. A lot of people will work for the same company their whole life. Japanese companies aren’t really known for treating their employees well either.
I’d guess what they’re doing well is hiring employees that are very passionate. I hear the anime industry is the same in that people who are in it are willing to work themselves to death because they want to work on big name projects
Just be clear, there is a reason that’s not in the quotes of the title. The author basically makes up that they’re "treating staff well* because they’re not randomly firing people right now. (The empowering bit is basically fabricated)
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