Game News 2.0

Mr. CooL ICE · 21-04-2023 2:17pm

That's pretty impressive. Fair play.

And here I was thinking I was great getting nearly 10k downloads for a stupid android soundboard app.

Retr0gamer · 21-04-2023 3:01pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120503775#Comment_120503775

What I learned from coding is that even the simplest looking app can be quite complicated. I'm sure it was a decent chunk of work. I wouldn't be surprised if your soundboard got more downloads than Harry's!

EoinMcLovin · 21-04-2023 3:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120502006#Comment_120502006

Yeah I did the same course in the Digital Hub. That game jogged my memory as I definitely heard of that before, I did the course in (2012/2013 I think)

Retr0gamer · 21-04-2023 3:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120504063#Comment_120504063

I was there 2012-2013 as well. I think they got rid of the games part of the course shortly afterwards which is a shame.

EoinMcLovin · 21-04-2023 3:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120504109#Comment_120504109

That's a shame, some of the design classes were good.

Mr. CooL ICE · 21-04-2023 4:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120503972#Comment_120503972

My app got app store review bombed by (what I assume were) friends of a rival app. Icing on the cake.

Retr0gamer · 21-04-2023 6:07pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120504150#Comment_120504150

The funniest moment I had was when the entire class turned against the lecturer who used to work for Sierra during a class. He was explaining how they used to pick which games got the bigger marketing budget and then the class figured out he was basically admitting that he was the one that shafted Homeworld out of its marketing budget and sent it out to die.

He was a decent guy and knew his stuff but there were a lot of Homeworld fans in the class!

SuperBowserWorld · 21-04-2023 6:12pm

It's strange we have FANNG et al here, but AAA video game development didn't really take off. I think it's because we are risk averse as a nation/economy. And there is much more money available in "boring" software dev.

CastorTroy · 21-04-2023 7:25pm

Is Havok still used? Wasn't that Irish? I know it's not a game but it was used in plenty of AAA games.

Retr0gamer · 21-04-2023 7:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120504918#Comment_120504918

Started up by a trinity lecturer and some students he hired. They had or might still have a small office in the digital hub on James street but they've been bought by Microsoft so not sure where they are now.

Retr0gamer · 21-04-2023 7:41pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120504655#Comment_120504655

Oh its all the governments fault. During my time in the industry Canada was blowing up in terms of game dev because of tax cuts and they were poaching talent and developers. The UK government really screwed up by refusing to introduce their own tax cuts for their own videogame industry. So the Irish games industry was lobbying politicians to take the opportunity to introduce Irish tax cuts and poach UK talent and developers.

But being Irish politicians with no foresight they let the opportunity get away from them and the UK brought in their own cuts.

Another big reason is the lack of coding in Irish schools. The UK was on the ball introducing coding into the curriculum in the 80s. Pretty sure Ireland still hasn't. As a result you have a lot of uk coders in the industry that got their start with assembly on microcomputers and their coding stills are ahead of most other coders that learn higher level languages. There also so really great development studios over there for triple A games.

We did have Funcom Dublin. Seanseanson has a great YouTube video on them.

SuperBowserWorld · 21-04-2023 9:07pm

It's now possible for a single person to create a game with AI generated art and sound and even a lot of the code. As a actual game for retail or a very good prototype.

So, that's one big hurdle out of the way for a good develope with a great game design.

RedXIV · 22-04-2023 9:32pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120504967#Comment_120504967

To be fair, coding is now in some schools. My daughter had the option of picking a technology module that I'd have KILLED for in secondary school where they learn to code on arduino boards and do some python & java coding.

Really echoing how badly we dropped the ball in Ireland for the tax cuts, I came out of one of the first dedicated game development B.Sc's in 2009 and there was a hunger then to get more game dev going in Ireland. We did have a lot of folks from the universities and gaming companies push for the tax breaks but I think the Great Recession took precedence and within a year of graduating, and no gaming jobs around, I ended up in enterprise software.

Without focusing on specific games though there are areas we're well known for contributing to, like Havok for physics engines, demonware for networking code, the xbox engineering team in microsoft in Dublin is not insignificant and I know a guy who did some good work on the accessibility projects for xbox in there too, and one that stuck out when I was in college was one of the best examples of a niche was a crowd who basically had an asset pack for trees they licenced to game studios. No idea if they are still going or not but apparently they were making a good bundle at the time.

Grumpypants · 23-04-2023 7:59pm

I'm hoping Romero's new FPS is a big hit. That's being made in Galway. It would be great to see them cement their place here and become a beacon for talent to come, or indeed stay, here.

Varik · 23-04-2023 11:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120505323#Comment_120505323

Going the other way there's a one man game made using unreal called "out of action" looks like a Ghost in the shell FPS that I really like the look of, made by a guy called Doku was an character and lighting artist and worked on a bunch of games as well as modding and if a game had a player created side of it's ingame store he'd probably having something in that.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1670780/Out_of_Action/

Only actual coding he'd to do was to get the slow mo to work, rest just used Unreals block system, which is probably no small coincidence that

Retr0gamer · 25-04-2023 12:24pm

Remember the PS1 and PS2? Remember when those consoles had libraries of weird quirky and brilliant games, when big game releases were interesting and not sad dad simulators?

Well humanity looks to be a nice slice of early playstation magnificence.

https://twitter.com/HumanityGame/status/1649054601109475328?t=DsOW1zXJ137xzUx9OJ6IWw&s=19

No news of a Xbox release unfortunately but damn this looks so good.

johnny_ultimate · 25-04-2023 12:30pm

The demo was great. Nice mix of old school puzzle vibes but with the new tech used for some delightfully weird visual and gameplay ideas. But it’s Enhance, one of the best devs around, so no surprise there :)

marcbrophy · 25-04-2023 2:51pm

For a second, I thought it was Humankind getting it's console release!

But yeah, I'll give this a blast on PS+ looks like some quirky fun :)

Zero-Cool · 26-04-2023 11:21am

Holy ****, Flashback 2, out November this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDSpS0xXbYI

Retr0gamer · 26-04-2023 11:28am

We already had Flashback 2 though.

I think I might be the only Fade to Black apologist still alive...

I just hope this is better than the utter shite that was that 3D Flashback reimagining from a few years back.

Zero-Cool · 26-04-2023 11:40am

Fade To Black was..... different. I remember enjoying it but also it wasn't a patch on the original. I'm not sure of the 3d sections in this but definitely keeping my eye on it.

johnny_ultimate · 26-04-2023 12:07pm

UK CMA formally blocks Microsoft’s Activision acquisition 👀 UK was always going to be the biggest hurdle, but still surprised they actually ended up blocking it. Pretty major deal - prepare for legal battles?

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/microsoft-activision-deal-prevented-to-protect-innovation-and-choice-in-cloud-gaming

CatInABox · 26-04-2023 12:12pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120522622#Comment_120522622

Have to admit, I didn't expect that to happen, particularly since they dropped their concerns about console level consolidation. Hilarious that it got blocked over cloud gaming, when absolutely no one is going to be streaming COD anytime soon, even if ABK chose to make it available.

26-04-2023 12:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120522644#Comment_120522644

It's also already available to stream on Boosteroid.

Jordan 199 · 26-04-2023 12:23pm

Maybe Microsoft and the CMA can reach some agreement by talking to Joe on Liveline.

😉

26-04-2023 12:30pm

There's nothing to stop Activision ans MS having a closer, very cosy relationship. They can't block 2 businesses doing business.

CastorTroy · 26-04-2023 12:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120522498#Comment_120522498

Not that I got far in Flashback or played Fade to Black, but I thought Fade to Black was more a follow up than a sequel, the same way Flashback was a follow up to Another World while others think it's a sequel.

CatInABox · 26-04-2023 12:40pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120522711#Comment_120522711

There's actually plenty, if you're in charge of a business, then you have to do what's in the interest of the shareholders. In this case, favouring MS over Sony would mean less sales, which would result in a lower stock price, the opposite of what shareholders would want. The shareholders might be missing out on a big pay today, but they definitely don't want their stock to perform worse.

EoinMcLovin · 26-04-2023 12:41pm

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1651181545409982466?t=b_GUwCn82p3mFVwYiiUf2g&s=19

UK say its blocking Microsoft deal

Retr0gamer · 26-04-2023 1:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120522498#Comment_120522498

Fade to Black is not a good game to go back to. I wouldn't be able to play it today. But on release it was a full 3D adventure game on PC before the likes of Tomb Raider. It really doesn't hold up though with poor controls, lack of any elevation in terrain and sky high difficulty. I think it's unfairly maligned as people only judge it against the PS1 port which was severely out of date when it arrived. On PC it reviewed really well and was seen as a big step forward in 3D.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120522742#Comment_120522742

Fade to Black is definitely a sequel to Flashback and takes place after it. Flashback also isn't a follow up to Another World. Both were different developers but people say that because it was the same publisher.

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