Grace Zhou’s Post

At first I only replied to this in a comment but then I realized I should share it with my network too. Partially to envoke the can-do spirit, and partially to give credit where credit is due ✨ Who makes a difference in these crappy scenarios are good colleagues. Colleagues who jump in so that you don't have to defend yourself against crappy assumptions 💪🏼 👉🏼 I remember when Christian Lord stepped into a discussion where someone asked "And who exactly are you?" to say "SHE started at Dreamhack in the Network team well before me..." and go on to read the person my ENTIRE resume in esports by heart. I was flabbergasted haha 🙈🙏🏼 No idea if he remembers that evening - but I thought wow, this guy is not only thinking about DEI, he is living DEI ❤️ will never forget it, I've personally never feel more seen or safe in my professional life and tell that story to people all the time. 👉🏼 I remember a similar situation where Andreas Thorstensson passed me several questions in a panel because "Andjela has more subject matter experise in this topic" very fact-matter but it made such a difference in how people viewed me in the room. Inclusion is always an act - and it starts with you. That is how you can help break the norms so that we can move into the society where (as a kid at LBS Kreativa Gymnasiet told me) we don't even need to say we're a gamer - because everyone is. Being a gamer is the norm now. #gaming #esports #games #gamedev #dei

Insights from the legendary Luis Levy that I need to share with gaming community... thank you sir! "New Year Resolutions for Devs who Survived 2023: 1. Seek nostalgia-worthy IP and make games that cater to that built-in audience -- Previous examples include Friday the 13th and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Terminator: Resistance and RoboCop: Rogue City, and even older titles like Rockstar's The Warriors and Ghostbusters: the Video Game. The Running Man, A Nightmare on Elm Street, RoboCop Versus The Terminator, Rambo: First Blood ... Sign me up! 2. Dig deeper and leave no stone unturned -- Consider more obscure, low-budget IP from the '80s and '90s. Don't get stuck on top-tier IP. Tons of incredible B-movies were made back then, with awesome locations and fun characters. We finally have the tools and technology to make these games at a reasonable cost. John Carpenter alone could be goldmine. We really need a new game based around John Carpenter's The Thing! 3. Think globally and broaden your horizons -- Assemble a team with talent from all over the world. Study other cultures. Read history books. Bring something NEW to games, something truly unexpected. Think in terms of text adventures, just plain adventure games, the perfect 5-hour action RPG with a twist at the end. 4. Take another look at mobile gaming and how to make it fresh once again -- Are there new genres that would work best with mobile? Games where you explore your hometown with an AI companion along for the ride? Photography games that teach you a real life skill? Making friends with AR ghosts? Traveling in time with a phone on your hands? Let's get out of the games-as-a-service and casual traps and offer something NEW to mobile gamers. 5. Listen to Gen Z and learn from them -- Gen Z loves old digicams and Mini DV camcorders. They are taking them everywhere they go and posting on Tik Tok about it. They are honoring the technology we discarded in the early to mid-2000s and bringing it back to life! Games are sometimes stuck in Gen X and Millennial tropes. Listening to Gen Z, understanding where they are coming from will help you make better games. How about you? What are your gamedev resolutions for 2024?"

Highlighting this opinion piece from Kyle Hilliard. There are some salient points here because games should always be first and foremost about play. Games are Play. And Play is Learning. People and products that forget that risk making work simulations that won't satisfy the need for play. And work sims don't attract players ('web3' should have learned this). Free to play that creates too much time obligation is, as the writer points out, less fun and more work. Experience versus obligation is an excellent set of contrasting paradigms to ruminate over. This, below, isn't every gamer but this is the mindset of the premium narrative player. ---- GameInformer: "Give Me Experiences, Not Obligations" (Kyle Hilliard) (Nov 24, 2023) (excerpt): "It is admittedly unfair of me, but any time a video game reveals itself as free-to-play, my interest immediately dissipates. Free-to-play games are not universally bad; plenty of brilliant design ideas, engaging stories, and fun mechanics can be found in games with no upfront admission fee. But once a game’s goal shifts from singular experience to long-term engagement, any excitement I may have folds in on itself and disappears like Pac-Man. It all stems from my desire for experiences, not obligations. In free-to-play and comparable models, success is marked by player engagement. The more rounds a player queues into and the longer they play, the more likely they are to engage with the monetized elements. And the best way to encourage that engagement is to incentivize players to return. Daily check-in unlocks and numerical goals related to how often you use certain mechanics – those are obligations without a finish line. I’ve fallen into the trap a few times with mobile games and online shooters, but I no longer have the patience to engage. I don’t fault developers for chasing this model; it can be extremely profitable when successful and ensure the long-term health of a business and its employees. I also understand the appeal of free-to-play games. It’s an avenue toward a social community, and nothing encourages friends to check out a multiplayer game more than the promise that you won’t have to pay a dime to at least try it out. For me, however, I don’t want required reading. I don’t want to feel like I’m missing out on temporary events and licensed character skins just because I played a different video game. I don’t want to commit to anything that demands I set a calendar reminder to play. It’s the way television used to work, and there’s a reason it’s nearly extinct. In the time I have set aside for entertainment and video games, I want experiences from creators with specific ideas that conclude. I’m more than happy to pay for those – even at a high price point – exactly once. The only obligation I want is the recurring memory of how much I enjoyed that experience. (keep reading) GameInformer: https://lnkd.in/gRPFEPnz #gameindustry #gameplay

As if nobody saw this going wrong, considering the cost of Tekken 8 from the start. A portion of the Tekken 8 community is up in arms around the recent announcement of the Tekken Shop, an avenue for paid cosmetics that'll offer a steady supply of classic character costumes and other fancy items for players to buy with in-game currency. The big problem? These weren't in game at-launch. The reason why people are aggravated is multi-faceted, and raises some genuine questions about how exactly the fighting game of the modern day should be monetized. These cosmetics don't come from thin air, and with players having a lot of fun dressing their favourite character up, are folks being unrealistic with their demands? The developers did acknowledge this, with producer Michael Murray stating the following on a Tekken Talk livestream: "We would like to ask a favour of everyone, that they update their thinking to the current environment of game development and how games are sold, etc." Games are so much more expensive to create than even Tekken 7 was, several times of that for the current platforms of games. So when we take some of these legacy costumes that people are asking for [...] you can't just take those assets from Tekken 4 and paste them into the current generation of hardware and make it look fine. "It's not like we're charging an outrageous price. The point we're trying to make is it's not like it's going into the coffers of Bandai Namco. We want to improve the game with these updates we're providing for free. In order to do that, we have a large development team that we have to pay for. This is how we're using those funds to try and make the game better, rather than trying to make money for the sake of making money." What are your thoughts on this? https://lnkd.in/dER8sTvG

I’ve always had some paranoia whilst enjoying digitally downloaded games, always some irrational fear that if I forget my log-in it will be all lost, or perhaps the service that holds the key goes bust I lose my collection. In a time when many people are losing their jobs, it feels like even more of a fear to me for their legacy to be lost too. I’ve always been able to rationalise cutting projects before release, even if they were a few days from being ready but, I struggle when a completed project is taken down for other reasons. I’m not ignorant of how licensing works but it's something that has always bugged me, people’s vision, blood, sweat and tears being poured into something, masses enjoying it and then not allowing history to remember it. If you’re wondering where this post has come from, 2012’s “Spec Ops: The Line” will no longer be published on online stores. https://lnkd.in/eBUWxNF9 A phenomenal game that I often recommend to anyone interested in shining a mirror on the player’s actions and thoughts. Spec Ops: The Line intentionally plays on its dissonant tones of looking and feeling like your generic military shooter whilst standing in opposition to ‘playing war’. Inspired by the book Heart of Darkness and the film Apocalypse Now, again, I always loved how it utilised the player's actions and weaponised them against the player to get them to think about what they have been doing. “The feelings that we want you to feel, are directly about you as the gamer choosing to sit down and play this game…What does playing this game say about us, about the games we choose to play” – Walt Williams, Lead Writer of Spec Ops: The Line. As of right now with all that is going on in the world, it feels like a real loss having something that questions 'how should games depict war' to be removed and almost erased. A crushing blow for games preservation. I hope that if anyone reading this missed out on buying it whilst it was around, there are lots of video essays and conversations on it on Youtube.

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🔒 BIG NEWS! 🎮📦 Games companies finally stepping up their game in the UK! The government has been working hard for THREE YEARS to put some restrictions on those pesky loot boxes, and we're finally seeing some progress. 👏🏼💪🏼 Loot boxes, we're looking at you! 🕵️♀️👀 These surprise mechanics have become a subject of concern among gamers, with concerns about their addictive nature and potential for exploitation. But fear not, change is coming! 🌟 The UK government has managed to convince gaming companies to limit access to loot boxes. 🛡️🚫 This means stricter rules will be in place to protect gamers, especially those most vulnerable to spending big bucks on these digital treasures. 💰💔 It's fantastic to see companies finally taking responsibility and addressing the issue head-on. Finally, gamers can enjoy their favorite games without feeling pressured to open their wallets at every turn! 🎉🙌 Let's hope these new restrictions pave the way for even more positive changes in the gaming industry. 🌈✨ After all, gaming should be fun, fair, and affordable for everyone! 🎮❤️ #LootBoxes #GamingIndustry #Regulations #UKGovernment #FairPlay

In December 1998 I was waiting with my brother outside a games store. The owner promised us that "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" would have been there. We purchased it for 120k lire, nowadays with inflation would have been slightly more than 100 euros. The development cost around $12M, with 200 people involved. But most importantly: the game completely changed our lives for good. We went out of the game better persons than we entered. That game had a meaning, a strong reason to exist. BONUS: The N64 console wasn't connected to the Internet, and the Pentium III in our room was slow to connect to a 56k connection. In a few seconds, we were in Hyrule! Imagine that today, impossible! I spend 10 minutes skipping notifications and PS Plus proposals on my PS5 before play. And then we ask why our kids are on Roblox. Come on, you know the patience of a toddler! Over the same period, TV networks were owned by the man who few years later would have governed Italy for 20 years. They shifted focus from curated and meaningful content to "talk shows". Cheaper, quick, and easy to produce, with high ROI. It worked, but years later people got sick of it, and suddenly the streaming era was here. Netflix offered very good content. Now you see trending platforms, like TikTok, trapping lots of attention. The content is filled with computer-generated videos. Someone is getting VERY rich. I have a theory: people aren't stupid. We can easily recognize when someone feeds us with cheap, repetitive, sloppy "content". So if you are creative, never stop creating. Every other event that excludes human creativity won't be permanent. It will probably cause lots of damage, but it will not be permanent. If you read until here I am looking for an artist to help me with a character for a personal project: - style can be realistic or stylized - dresses in line with the history of Brazil (afro-american culture) - the setting is Solar Punk. Let's do something great together!

Sandler was started 50 years ago by David Sandler and one of the fundamentals is this book. Games People Play is a 1964 book by Eric Berne that introduced the concept of transactional analysis. The book describes games as recurring patterns of social interaction, often unconscious, that are played to manipulate others or to avoid intimacy. Here are 12 lessons from Games People Play: 1. People play games to get their needs met. People have a variety of needs, such as for love, attention, and control. Games are a way of trying to meet these needs, even if the methods are not always healthy. 2. Games are often unconscious. People may not be aware that they are playing games. Games can be so ingrained in our behavior that we don't even realize we're doing them. 3. Games can be harmful to relationships. Games can create conflict, distrust, and resentment in relationships. They can also prevent people from forming deep and meaningful connections. 4. Understanding games can help people to break free from them. Once people understand the games they are playing, they can begin to make conscious choices about how they interact with others. 5. There are three types of games: complementary, parallel, and crossed. Complementary games are those in which the players' needs are met in a reciprocal way. Parallel games are those in which the players have similar needs but are not meeting them in a reciprocal way. Crossed games are those in which the players are trying to meet incompatible needs. 6. Some games are more harmful than others. Some games are relatively harmless, while others can be very destructive. It is important to be aware of the potential harm of games before playing them. 7. Games can be played at different levels of intensity. Games can be played in a playful way, or they can be played in a more serious and destructive way. It is important to be aware of the level of intensity of a game before playing it. 8. Games can be played with different people. Games can be played with romantic partners, friends, family members, or even strangers. The type of game that is played can vary depending on the relationship between the players. 9. Games can be played in different contexts. Games can be played in social settings, at work, or even in therapy. The context in which a game is played can affect its meaning and impact. 10. Games can be changed. It is possible to change the games that you play. This requires awareness, understanding, and a willingness to change your behavior. 11. There are alternatives to games. There are more healthy ways of meeting your needs than playing games. These alternatives may involve assertiveness, communication, and compromise. 12. Transactional analysis can help people to understand and change their games. Transactional analysis is a therapeutic approach that can help people to understand the games they play and to develop more healthy ways of interacting with others.

Currently I'm playing "Yakuza: Ishin!" which is a UE remake of the original that came out back in 2014. Recently it was released in Gamepass which was a greenlight for me to finally get acquainted with the title. While I was playing it a brand new Yakuza game was released (The Man Who Erased His Name) and another one on its way to be released early next year. Each one of those requires quite a lot of time to properly complete (achievement wise) which means I will have months of gaming experience ahead of me. This made me think of the phenomena of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the authors of the "Like a Dragon" series which is actually a "real" name since the "yakuza" title was adopted specifically for western market. Started back in 2005 the series now consists of 27 sequels, prequels, spin-offs and remakes. Of course, it's not a unique situation (i.e. Final Fantasy) but definitely an interesting case. According to public information, it took 3 years for the studio to develop the first game while the development cycle for some of the subsequent games reduced down to 8-10 months. Not to mention the fact that most of the time multiple titles were in the works simultaneously (including other games than Yakuza) and for multiple platforms. I have no information on how many people worked on the very first game, but I have no doubts they worked pretty hard since they had to develop a brand new engine. Actually, I believe that the very fact of using their own engine(s) is a huge part of the quick production "secret". Yes it takes time but you have all the tools you actually need to develop the game you want. There's no need for third party support as you have devs in the same room/building. Still, I wonder if more future RGGS games will use UE, just like "Ishin!" The other part of the formula is the fact that many of the games are set in the very same district (or feature it to some degree), that evolves with time while the core layout staying the same. And the last but not the least one is the incredible work ethic that made it all possible. I'm almost sure this wouldn't be possible outside of Japan. Also, one of the things that was a very smart move - mixing the main titles production plan with spin-offs. Otherwise I don't see how it would be possible to keep up the quality of the games and development team spirit. Just take a look at this insane release schedule that RGG Studio and SEGA were able to pull off for the past ~15 years (I was able to compile it based on what info is available online)! So far I have played 12 games from SEGA/RGGS including all "Like a Dragon" (aka "Yakuza") games that were out on Gamepass, their very first game Binary Domain, and both Judgment spinoffs. Some of those were stellar, some were ok, and just a few of them felt a bit off (and I played them pretty much one after another in chronological order). Which is a very impressive result.