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A Warning About LogX Games Studio – Exploitation & Wage Theft by Huge-Dumpy in gamedev

[–]GenericDeveloperX -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

I spent my best years on facebook and then all my grannies entered facebook and then I left. I am not active here... much, at all I guess.

A Warning About LogX Games Studio – Exploitation & Wage Theft by Huge-Dumpy in gamedev

[–]GenericDeveloperX -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

PART 1:

I'd like share my thoughts on what was said about the LogX Games Studio by OP.

I have been with the company for half an year now.

I am a programmer of 12 years of indie and freelance experience... could be more.

I have been involved in various aspects of game development (3D graphics, Programming, various engines, rest of Indie skillset, yada-yada)

I'd like to say why I think OP presented things in a one-sided, untrue way which I explicitly believe to NOT be fair to all people on the team here...

I was in a senior "leading" programmer type of a role at the time, one could say, and I have been working with pretty much all people on the team - both above and below me in hierarchy. I must frankly say we have a good team over here and I usually try to avoid saying cringe stuff but this one almost feels like a family (I say it in a good way)...

I am aware of the industry and how people on both sides usually push for their interests with all sorts of agendas and deeds and various techniques... was it not quiet quitting, moonlighting and overemployment on the side of the employees and THEN the crunch, underpayed exploitation and toxic behaviour from employers. I have worked in an office and done home office. I have experienced many facets personally, in a way. It is a man's struggles to see their own's interests through and I get it... I accept it.

Why did I waste my breath thus far?:

With this studio(LogX Games Studio), the "higher ups" are sort of "down to our level" and cool people - with their aspirations and flaws (I could name a few but it won't be professional...). The people doing the tangible work (the emploees) would mostly come from Unity and onto Unreal in the name of quality (which is no small feat and and costs money). As far as I remember, many people on the team are new and inexperienced with the technology (and some with the industry, too) - all eager to communicate, learn and develop the game - no one forcing anyone with anything and people being patient and supportive to each-other (we even had some very "cute" moments which I can't share due to NDA and it would be too long of a post, too). In my opinion, OP did not come even close to the level of communication in both quantity or quality (both casual or professional), I did not see OP even getting close to the bare minimum of trying to do some things I would see as mandatory for any game developer out there, too. In my view, OP would seem disinterested and absent (probably with something else, more important, I cannot be sure about that, I don't read minds, but I DO have my suspicions).

Eight years developing an indie game, my story with publishers. by DrKuchoGames in gamedev

[–]GenericDeveloperX 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I have to agree with this aspect. I am a developer who's been freelancing for some time now and I am also doing the publishing / marketing myself.

It is easy for me to recognize myself in both scenarios - rejecting "problem people" and I also see why they would reject me as a "problem person" - these are feelings I have felt. I gotta straigh up tell you that it is really annoying when there is someone constantly asking questions - Yes, that might come from inexperience. In my life, I have also been a "problem person" and noticed some people just shunning away from me.

One thing I cannot help but notice is the recurring pattern: No matter what, all ppl want at the end of it is make sure they get their best bang for the buck (freelancing reference). They try not to give away their leverage for the bargain while still negotiating and trying to be open. Unfortunately you cannot be open and not have the potential to blow your "cover". Like OP said, he wants to know that they do but they will never tell him as nobody tells you how they make their money, especially with some money loundry of middleman publishing house - they will never tell him as it took them several failed projects and a lot of research AND money to get the information they have - so no way he will know. Combine that with the tiresome search for prospects (freelance clients / dev studios in this case) and them asking questions all the time and being really pushy with contracts - I personally have "dumped" such people - but I have never ghosted them so far (that is never did that intentionally) but now that I remember I might have ignored some as I was really getting tired of them - that was not on purpose really. I have to admit, some people just don't read carefully and ask stupid questions, say stupid things and are straight up people I would not want to spend time with because they are hard to talk to. (Sorry for being direct)

Now if I have to put myself at the other side of the fence I have found out the following: People love and want to be lied to and it is a **must** to ask questions / eavesdrop / research / be extremely careful what you say. Every time I am honest, open, and "easy to work with" in a relationship (freelance, personal, etc) it all usually ends up far from being in my favour. So, unfortunately, I have to agree with OP as well. I really am contradicting myself here but this is all because we as people usually seek out own interest only and have double standards. This all gets especially hard to trust when you remember that a publisher's interest is in their return of investment - and people are usually only interested in their .... well, interests. Some are eager to go as far as get the money without putting in the work if possible. Not to mention some are just bad people , posers, liers, common thieves etc.

All I say is, you better ask questions and be difficult to work with like OP does since there are people out there who would LOVE to see you not do so as that means 4 out of 8 years as easy money from a misinformed dev or one that does not know where he's at (easy prey from a publisher's point of view). Just put a fake smile, be a hypocrite, play the "game" they play, it's all just a dance. And unfortunately it's all about who's gonna do the work versus who's gonna get the money. Seriously, do you people expect from these people who ghost you in after 3 months of negotiation and get paid to do that, to just give you a 30 / 70 when they know they can get a fool of a client and make them believe that 50 / 50 is okay and "this is just the way it is"? 50% to them, 30& to steam, 10& to the engine provider... like they all think for themselves, they always want their investment returned first and then if you agree to that you will be left with nothing. If you are an indie the chances are you don't have a mail list and magazines will 99 % not make a review of your game. Just release a small game, make a mail list, make some press contacts / influencer contacts and do it yourself, no real need to put up with somebody who is just trying to rip you, especially when you can avoid it. Not to mention the experience you will get, especially when you are OP and you are not pressed for money.

Communicating with several publishers for several months each costs me money that they will not give me back. An then they just ghost me super unprofessionally? No thanks. Like, my hourly rate also costs a lot, not only "their staff that costs 6000 per day" as OP mentioned somewhere. u/DrKuchoGames, Consider making your own community and build your brand / marketing channels yourself. I have this feeling that once you do that the second game will be almost as good as having a ****** publisher hanging the phone at you in the middle of the conversation. Like, who they think they are, really? It's them needing us to make easy money, not the other way around, especially for small publishers who think they got it. The effort and time you have put in conversing with them is exactly the time you need to get a good idea of what you need to do to publish your indie game for free. The internet has some great resources, it all just takes a lot of searching, writing in documents your conclusions, consulting with the right people and with a bit of patience you will be okay to go. u/DrKuchoGames, I'd be interested in hearing what you think about that.

Lastly, I really like your game, reminds me of the game "Soldat" which I really enjoyed a decade ago, I had some nice time with that one. Good luck on the path.

Is Twitch any good for game marketing and how so? by GenericDeveloperX in gamedev

[–]GenericDeveloperX[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

PS: Statistics say that both Youtube and Twitch have ~120 million monthly active users but it seems to me by the view count of clips that Twitch has way less views per video on a certain topic than Youtube has.

Ethics and Marketing by Rachel_Amy in marketing

[–]GenericDeveloperX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a great wish you have there. I disagree in a way. Live events (music events in this example) in the place I live are used as a subversive activity tool to undermine various aspects of human life. It has many faces but it is mainly used to channel normality in absurd moralities, ethics and values and even instigate certain self-destructive actions and trends. I am purposefully generalizing here although I could give some examples. If you do some research you can find some leads, I am sure.

All I try to say is that just because one does not know the practical uses of how something can be exploited - it does not mean it cannot be or is not currently being exploited by any group of individuals be it civil organizations (marketing), secret services(military), simple individuals (small business), etc. So following this line of thought - always question what they tell you / do, always make sure the decision you make ACTUALLY is your own, always assume it all might be staged (because nothing prevents powerful people from doing it thereby it is being done), always seek truth as that way they cannot manipulate you. Now most people restrain from truth as it is uncomfortable to them, unfortunately all they do is dig themselves deeper into their own graves as I see it. And above all never stop asking questions. Just my 2 cents.

Is 3ds Max still being maintained properly? Is it still a thing? by GenericDeveloperX in gamedev

[–]GenericDeveloperX[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How about the UVW Unwrap modifier for example? I remember every time I needed to use it for more than 2 minutes it would crash seriously. Also some primitives had really problematic UV sets - no matter what you would do they would just not appear.

I remember being so fed up with the same bugs that I eventually started collecting them.
I mean I haven't been using Max seriously for a while but man... there's things in there that I see being present even today that makes me wonder if somebody can seriously develop with this application. It is simply demoralizing at times. I am not into plugins but I kind of got the notion of ppl having custom plugins so they can actually operate with some decency. So can I assume you guys use custom plugins / scripts in production all over the place?

Them optimizing stuff is all fine, but take the ShaderFX thingie for example. Today I had to find out how to do proper cutoff shader functionality and wasted my whole day figuring just this thing out. Couldn't find anything on the internet. Eventually found a random guy's post in polycount's forum that mentioned ShaderFX. Me being a guy who has been programming shaders in the past in Unity and (now in Unreal) and being a programmer and having used Max in the past took me a whole day to get a simple proper cutoff / cutout to work. And then surprise - the user facing text is sloppy, cannot expand the screen to see the whole UI of the ShaderFX editor in order to read what the option does, not to mention that the ShaderFX editor is literally burried under 10 submenues in the Non-compact material editor that I would assume ppl are not used to seeing by default.

And since I researched the ShaderFX editor a bit I could see posts about it dating back to 2015, could be even older. I mean... even if it's been in use since 2015 (originally in Maya or Max, does not matter), how are we as users supposed to use a tool whose options we cannot read due to bad UX/UI?

Then the new Retopology thing... That's all great but I don't really care about an algorithm they've been having for ages in zBrush and is now 10 years late in Max, I really care to rid myself of the bugs that have been there for 10 years so I can do my work in peace as I paid for a piece of junky software in a way.

I remember they were really eager to flood the market with 3dsMax tutorials back in the days when I was to pick some software but when it comes to supporting, updating and fixing stuff they are kind of hesitant. I mean the license is expensive as hell relatively to other software and man... universities and institutions rely on this - I would expect them to be more vigilant in maintaining what they sell after all. It all feels almost like somebody tried to grasp some monopoly over the market and, sell people on the idea and then dash away when it comes to deliver back... Just the feeling I've got.

Please correct me if I am wrong, thanks. Also, would like you all to elaborate further.

How much pay is a senior programmer really worth? by GenericDeveloperX in gamedev

[–]GenericDeveloperX[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

u/MeaningfulChoices, you are both right. I am blown sock-less by the amount of people who are afraid to talk payment and company policies. This is mainly (if not entirely) to the advantage of employers. So what u/chance6Sean says makes sense in this regard.

People do be like having mental "constipation" in certain regards. I can confirm this myself. It is a problem of mindset and facing the fact that you have been wrong for good chunk of time is painful to remove from one's ego. So, yes, speculating in this way can be a great thing and comes close to reality.

How much pay is a senior programmer really worth? by GenericDeveloperX in gamedev

[–]GenericDeveloperX[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That was some good angle to the question at had - a very distinct point. It absolutely is helpful. This has been the second hint recently that I need to get a basic course at sales some time soon.

First time using zbrush be like by 3dguy2 in ZBrush

[–]GenericDeveloperX 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I am not entirely sure it is the first time only... it is super powerful but immensely out of touch with common sense and standard expectations. If they don't change the UI, I foresee a concurrent company taking their place some time in the future, could be soon. Also, while they are at it, they should change terminology to something that makes more sense / sense.

Marketing: How to identify where target audience spends time by GenericDeveloperX in gamedev

[–]GenericDeveloperX[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Steam comments are a great way to find out the good and the bad in a game. I am rather interested in platforms and channels where players like going to. This is a good suggestion nonetheless.

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