I wish I could blame it all on these kinds of people. In reality it’s about 60% of the story or so. They’ve always been around but they weren’t this bold a decade ago.

A small part is the political climate over the last decade. That’s a topic worth its own encyclopedia one day, and games is affected as well.

A large part is that games just isn’t doing well financially right now. Because everyone in tech wants to invest in AI so there’s a lot less money in the space. Smaller or medium sized teams can’t get funding and less pitches get approved. Larger studios are “fine” but companies are using this time to cash out. Which is why you hear about Activision selling out to Microsoft and EA to Saudi Arabia. Layoffs at small companies happen because they need to (or companies simply shut down) , layoffs at large companies happen to make the number go up.

Last decent chunk of the problem is the landscape of games is changing. Converging more on “forever games” rather than traditional console experiences. This is an emerging problem that will get worse over the coming years, something even the consoles themselves are trying to shape itself around.

And to the people, not knowing your employees (or giving a damn to look them up) implies a structure where leadership is disconnected from the craftsmen that actually bring value to the company. Making leadership look out of touch, unrelatable, and outright crass.

Not to mention that he proves the writer correct in their accusation by admitting he does use AI and relishes in it.

Untitled Avatar: The Last Airbender title

That one was already cancelled, by the way.

More than you think. I believe the DOJ lost 70% of lawyers in 2025 alone:

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/19/g-s1-66906/trump-civil-rights-justice-exodus

I heard later stories report 75%.

Now, anyone they hired into the circus to try and replace them surely lacked integrity as a prerequisite.

No chance they do it now. They’ll do it when Trump is likely already dead, if (and only if) a proper democrat and congress comes into power, and when the sentiment tides signifigantly shift. To the point where that MAGA neighbor suddenly pretends he never voted for Trump (he voted for him 3 times. maybe 4).

Then they will probably get 1-2 lawyers on the hook, take their license, and give them a consultant role elsewhere in government as an olive branch. Justice. I sure hope to be proven wrong, but something tells me we won’t learn from Reconstruction.

Odd because these files are well before Trump’s presidency, let alone when that immunity clause was ruled.

Probably intentional

I’m heavily downvoted in this comment section because I dared ask a hypothetical philosophical question?

If you do it in a way that feels like you’re “just asking questions”, that’s a dishonest gesture often used in alt-right pipelines to astroturf discussions. sealioning is what it’s grown to be called.

If you were being genuine, I’m sorry you weren’t believed. But this is sadly an increasingly common internet tactic out there.

old school 80’s/90’s sci-fi humor. They’d often use some superpower or new tech with “x-ray vision” that can conveniently see through clothes but not skin…

I imagine the rest can be left to your imagination on how that humor was utilized.

I don’t hate tech. But we are definitely in time of techno robber barons who have long drained any benefit of the doubt. Meta especially deserves no grace.

There’s a clear disctinction these days bewteen “Tech” and “Big Tech™️”. This is firmly in the latter.

Are there alternatives outside of paging. I know the risk of texting sensitive information, but I figured there’d be a more modern system than paging.

I have much more in common with a working class boomer, than I do with a rich person who is my same age.

Probably. But what did that working class Boomer (who at best, is a few years from retirement) voting for? Probably closer in line to what the young rich person says.

We have more in common, but they still vote against their (and by extension, my) best interests. Unless it’s housing of course. Their best interests conflict with mine and align with the rich young guy.

So far, not a god damn thing.

It’s starting just now, like this year. Millenials had the numbers for at least 8 years, but not the turnout. Well, Cheeto man finally made them mad enough to get out there and vote and we’re seeing quite a few upsets even within the Dem establishment party itself.

Better late than never.

the answer to your question is “K-shaped Economy”. Lot of people doing this are in fact doing way better than they were 4 years ago. Some of them are indeed taking out more debt to do this, but most haven’t felt the pain of this modern economy.

I would argue that Valve should’ve just have upgraded the Steam Deck and I find that a far more worthwhile device.

They still do plan making a Steam Deck 2. But given that the Steam Deck OLED also needed a 300 dollar price hike, it’s clear that it would have had a similar fate. IDK how many steam deck players being ready to pay 4 figures for a handheld.

( I say this owning an 800 dollar GPD Win 4).

well that makes the hiring or trial process much easier, no? I don’t think the problem here is “I can’t tell if my employee gives a fuck”.

And I can tell you that passion is not something lacking in the games industry.

How is a small company realistically going to test if someone is worth hiring or not.

we got into this stupid market because we spent decades neglecting training. When you don’t train for what you need, you don’t get good at identifying what skills you really need in order to succeed.

So this question is already too far gone. If someone has most skills but is missing one: train them for it. Even if the training is as informal as "give them a few weeks in a low stakes environment to work on less valuable (but less risky) work.

They bought out Rare and did nothing with them for 15 years. Now they are just “The Sea of Thieves” devs.

Imagine a timeline where they became a 2nd party Nintendo studio instead.

You’d think they’d understand tech at the bare minimum. But slashing your team of highly technical people who made engines for almost 30 years sure disproves that notion.