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Former Uncharted, Last of Us game designer joins Xbox Game Studios' The Initiative

Bernkastel

Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
If anyone still thinks this is not a AAA studio but created to make small AA/A games, then this job posting should clear your doubts
www.linkedin.com

The Initiative on LinkedIn: Senior Tools Engineer in Santa Monica, California, United States |…

The Initiative is looking for a Senior Tools Engineer, someone well versed in current game development pipelines, able to implement the technology needed to…
www.linkedin.com www.linkedin.com
The Initiative is looking for a Senior Tools Engineer, someone well versed in current game development pipelines, able to implement the technology needed to ship AAA games now and in the future, who enjoys working closely with art, design and animation disciplines. work.
Click to expand...
 
CyberPanda

CyberPanda

Banned
Scathach Eilean said:
If anyone still thinks this is not a AAA studio but created to make small AA/A games, then this job posting should clear your doubts
www.linkedin.com

The Initiative on LinkedIn: Senior Tools Engineer in Santa Monica, California, United States |…

The Initiative is looking for a Senior Tools Engineer, someone well versed in current game development pipelines, able to implement the technology needed to…
www.linkedin.com www.linkedin.com
Click to expand...
F86-FE934-23-AC-40-E1-BE92-20-B91-E496096.png
 
F

Foxbat

Banned
Apparently the Iniative is causing emotional harm to Sony fanboys.

A forum about the gaming industry has a post about the hiring of a person.... In the gaming industry.

And the usual Sony fanboys are all up in arms about it.
 
CyberPanda

CyberPanda

Banned
Foxbat said:
Apparently the Iniative is causing emotional harm to Sony fanboys.

A forum about the gaming industry has a post about the hiring of a person.... In the gaming industry.

And the usual Sony fanboys are all up in arms about it.
Click to expand...
Thing gamers need to understand is that these developers have no allegiance to the company they are working for, and at the end of the day they are just following their passion wherever they may work. In the grand scheme of things, it's all about money and paying the bills. And, whoever offers the biggest salary and benefits, that's where developers will work.
 
F

Foxbat

Banned
CurryPanda said:
Thing gamers need to understand is that these developers have no allegiance to the company they are working for, and at the end of the day they are just following their passion wherever they may work. In the grand scheme of things, it's all about money and paying the bills. And, whoever offers the biggest salary and benefits, that's where developers will work.
Click to expand...

Exactly. The other thing that people should understand is that there are people who are interested in and follow the gaming industry. That's what GAF is all about. If there is only one place on earth to discuss something such as the hiring of a guy at a studio.... This is that place.

But we've got people such as tlw and EDMIX writing novels the size of War and Peace whining about it. I don't get that. There's certain topics here that I'm not interested in. I don't go into them shitting them up. I just scroll past them. I just can't understand being so butthurt, that they would attempt to change and mute the narrative of this forum.

Fanboys gonna fanboy though I guess.
 
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CyberPanda

CyberPanda

Banned
lynux3 said:
I wonder if The Initiative is going to be the equivalent to Sony's ICE. That would be interesting.
Click to expand...
Well, thats why Microsoft made Gamestack, and I believe ICE allows all Sony first party to share tech and ideas and thats what GameStack will do as well. It's exciting times in the game industry thats for sure!

Microsoft Game Dev

Microsoft Game Dev can help you find the right mix of tools and services to fit your game development needs.
developer.microsoft.com
 
F

Foxbat

Banned
CurryPanda said:
Well, thats why Microsoft made Gamestack, and I believe ICE allows all Sony first party to share tech and ideas and thats what GameStack will do as well. It's exciting times in the game industry thats for sure!

Microsoft Game Dev

Microsoft Game Dev can help you find the right mix of tools and services to fit your game development needs.
developer.microsoft.com
Click to expand...

Hopefully Gamestack doesn't do for MS what the ICE team has done for Sony.

Sony's ICE team is largely responsible for all Sony's exclusives playing and looking much more like a ND game than they should. The whole "Sony cinematic third person movie game" thing is largely due to the sharing of too much.
 
L

lynux3

Member
Foxbat said:
Hopefully Gamestack doesn't do for MS what the ICE team has done for Sony.

Sony's ICE team is largely responsible for all Sony's exclusives playing and looking much more like a ND game than they should. The whole "Sony cinematic third person movie game" thing is largely due to the sharing of too much.
Click to expand...
This is just a blatant lie. How many threads are you going to shit on today?
 
F

Foxbat

Banned
lynux3 said:
This is just a blatant lie. How many threads are you going to shit on today?
Click to expand...

No.... it's not. It may not be your opinion, but that doesn't make it false.

Shit posting is doing exactly what you're doing. Posting bs like "That's a blatant lie" without substance, proof, or discussion.

So quit shitting the place up already please.
 
Snake29

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
Scathach Eilean said:
So, the senior concept artist of Star Citizen has joined The Initiative
Didn't the previous concept artist also leave the project? I guess this is what happens when you micro-manage everything and don't give any creative freedom to your artists.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? Concept artists are the ones that switch the most between studio's and film studio's. A lot of Cloud Imperium concept artists also done a lot of work for movies or other games.

Maybe he was hired for a certain time. It's like people are so obsessed with developers these days, pretending that these individuals are all gods. It's like the world ends when somebody leaves and somebody else takes their place.
 
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Bernkastel

Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Snake29 said:
What are you talking about? Concept artists are the ones that switch the most between studio's and film studio's. A lot of Cloud Imperium concept artists also done a lot of work for movies or other games.

Maybe he was hired for a certain time. It's like people are so obsessed with developers these days, pretending that these individuals are all gods. It's like the world ends when somebody leaves and somebody else takes their place.
Click to expand...
www.forbes.com

Exclusive: The Saga Of 'Star Citizen,' A Video Game That Raised $300 Million—But May Never Be Ready To Play

Video game legend Chris Roberts has spent seven years building "Star Citizen," drawing in money from average gamers in the world's biggest crowdfunded project outside cryptocurrency. The game is still not done.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
Before David Jennison quit as Cloud Imperium’s lead character artist in 2015, he wrote a letter to human resources—it leaked on the internet—trying to explain why he completed only five characters in 17 months. One problem, Jennison said, was that Roberts frequently reversed approvals for the characters he was working on. “All the decisions for the character pipeline and approach had been made by Roberts,” Jennison wrote. “It became clear that this was a companywide pattern—CR dictates all.”
Click to expand...
This is not normal and no artist will want to work like this.
 
Snake29

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
Scathach Eilean said:
www.forbes.com

Exclusive: The Saga Of 'Star Citizen,' A Video Game That Raised $300 Million—But May Never Be Ready To Play

Video game legend Chris Roberts has spent seven years building "Star Citizen," drawing in money from average gamers in the world's biggest crowdfunded project outside cryptocurrency. The game is still not done.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com

This is not normal and no artist will want to work like this.
Click to expand...

This one person that didn’t like how it went. Ask those other 500+ stuff at this time how it goes. We are almost 5 years from that time, a lot has changed. As if other studio’s do not have internal problems? Latest CDPR new and a lot of others before. Ooh and that forbes article, still have to laugh how bad it is. Shit happens in every company, even where i work.

The obsession to hate Star Citizen is also funny. People like to echo what others say. If i ask people why they continue hating on it, most of the time they do not have a valid argument.....”because others hate it”.
 
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Pallas

Pallas

Member
Snake29 said:
What are you talking about? Concept artists are the ones that switch the most between studio's and film studio's. A lot of Cloud Imperium concept artists also done a lot of work for movies or other games.

Maybe he was hired for a certain time. It's like people are so obsessed with developers these days, pretending that these individuals are all gods. It's like the world ends when somebody leaves and somebody else takes their place.
Click to expand...

Over exaggerating a bit there? I haven’t seen or met anyone who portrays these developers as “God’s”, if anything the closest comparison would probably be akin to something like atheletes on a professional team( and no, Im not calling developers atheletes, but like them they can shift from team to team quite a bit) and people do keep track of that and follow the movement of them very precisely.
 
Bernkastel

Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Snake29 said:
This one person that didn’t like how it went. Ask those other 500+ stuff at this time how it goes. We are almost 5 years from that time, a lot has changed. As if other studio’s do not have internal problems? Latest CDPR new and a lot of others before. Ooh and that forbes article, still have to laugh how bad it is. Shit happens in every company, even where i work.

The obsession to hate Star Citizen is also funny. People like to echo what others say. If i ask people why they continue hating on it, most of the time they do not have a valid argument.....”because others hate it”.
Click to expand...
So, there are 500+ concept artists ? You said concept artists leave all the time, so I quoted the guy that left.
I am not here to talk about the Forbes article, so I specifically quoted what I was talking about.
And keep in mind, the guy that just recently left was the 'Senior Concept Artist'.
 
CyberPanda

CyberPanda

Banned
So far:
  • Sze Jones : Coming from Stiduio Wildcard, responsible for Atlas, he will be in charge of directing the character creation team in the first game of The Initiative. Its incorporation could suggest the existence of a character creation system.
  • Matt Corcoran : Also from Studio Wildcard, he will share the role of main artist in terms of character creation.
  • Branford Williams : In the last 7 years he has worked as a freelance artist for studies such as Cloud Imperium and Daybreak. His new position as a designer at The Initiative seems like it will require full dedication.
  • Isaac Yeran Kim : His latest works have been as a conceptual artist in Naughty Dog and Treyarch, he will repeat roles in the first game of The Initiative.
  • Cesar Castro : The new senior software engineer from The Initiative began his career at Gameloft, and has spent the last five years at the gigantic EA.
  • Robert Marr : The leader of the gameplay design team at The Initiative already has a name, and he comes from covering that same position at Cryptic Studios for eight years, although he has in his resume with names as classic as Midway Studios.
  • Robert Ryan : We knew that he joined the studio a few days ago , before Gallagher had time to announce it, this designer is one of those responsible for games like Uncharted 3 or The Last of Us.
  • Arlington Cruz : This animator has spent a large part of his career making occasional collaborations with various studios, now he joins the project of The Initiative.
 
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Gavin Stevens

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
On this sounds like a dream studio. You have so much talent, from so many big names...

...but it doesn’t always work out that way in the real world, and with talent comes ego.

So, as a MS fan, I hope this is going to blow me away and be at least on par with Sony’s AAA visuals and games. But I’m not getting overly attached just yet. 343 was built out of the biggest and best Halo fans and devs and that was less than spectacular.
 
Bernkastel

Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
o'dium said:
On this sounds like a dream studio. You have so much talent, from so many big names...

...but it doesn’t always work out that way in the real world, and with talent comes ego.

So, as a MS fan, I hope this is going to blow me away and be at least on par with Sony’s AAA visuals and games. But I’m not getting overly attached just yet. 343 was built out of the biggest and best Halo fans and devs and that was less than spectacular.
Click to expand...
The problem with 343i was that they tried to do their own thing, which didn't fit with Halo. They also hired many people who hate Halo and Xbox(they thought that will add something constructive to the team),so their were many internal disagreements within the team. They now have mostly purged the likes of Corrinne Yu and her husband Kenneth Scott and hired many ex-Bungie and many other devs who are fan of Halo(even the old community manager Ske7cth).
Initiative on the other is composed of people who have all been personally picked by Darell and are his team. They will also do their own thing.
 
Gavon West

Gavon West

Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
Snake29 said:
A bit of nonsense to follow every dev that is going to work for a studio, as if this is not normally at daily bases. Are we going to make a thread for every dev now?

I mean...we can make one for him:

But nobody cares.
Click to expand...

Yeah except, this is different. I can't think of a single studio with this much talent under one roof like The Initiative. That's why the hiring spree is such a big deal.
 
Bernkastel

Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
8bitghost said:
I'm legit embarrassed for this team.

There are over 400 Naughty Dog employees at this point. When one of them lands at a Microsoft studio they put out a press release or namedrop on Twitter. It's cringe inducing.

18 months later and the studio is approx 30 people. Their first game is due to release around 2025 at this rate.
Click to expand...
They didn't put a press release. It was journalists and fans who made it news. Drew Murray's twitter account reflects his personal thoughts so he linked the article, there is no official press release of them getting any devs(only announced in LinkedIn). I don't think they are in a hurry to launch their next project, they are still building their core team. And these are not just any random developers, they are senior staffs from SSM, Rockstar, Naughty Dog, Insomniac etc. People also made a big deal out of it when Naughty Dog hired Corrinne Yu from 343i(and when recently Naughty Dog concept artist joined 343i).
Again, 400 devs is not a necessity, they will probably only go upto 100(343i on the other is like 600 devs, Rockstar at 800). The whole goal here is to bring some of the most talented devs in the industry and see what they can do with a AAA budget. Even Ninja Theory is around 100 devs(and they made Hellblade with 20 people).
Also, 18 months ? It's not even a year yet.
 
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Snake29

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
Gavon West said:
Yeah except, this is different. I can't think of a single studio with this much talent under one roof like The Initiative. That's why the hiring spree is such a big deal.
Click to expand...

Bullshit, because you don't know where people from other big AAA studio's have worked before. Go follow every single dev from some other big AAA studio and you'll find out where they worked before. Then this news about every developer who joins The Initiative isn't that special.

It's nothing different, and The Initiative is still small. People act as if this is already some big studio with hundreds of devs.

They even hired a guy straight from Space X.
Click to expand...

That same guy also worked for Sony...what's the difference now? He is just a software engineering, not a scientist or astronaut.

They didn't put a press release. It was journalists and fans who made it news. Drew Murray's twitter account reflects his personal thoughts so he linked the article. I don't think they are in a hurry to launch their next project, they are still building their core team. And these are not just any random developers, they are senior staffs from SSM, Rockstar, Naughty Dog, Insomniac etc. People also made a big deal out of it when Naughty Dog hired Corrinne Yu from 343i(and when recently Naughty Dog concept artist joined 343i).
Again, 400 devs is not a necessity, they will probably only go upto 100(343i on the other is like 600 devs, Rockstar at 800). The whole goal here is to bring some of the most talented devs in the industry and see what they can do with a AAA budget. Even Ninja Theory is around 100 devs(and they made Hellblade with 20 people).
Click to expand...

Those numbers are "staff'' not actual developers. 100 343 is total staff, 100 Ninja Theory is total staff, 800 Rockstar is total staff, 400 Naughty Dog is total staff. All are not total developers. Every studio wants to have the best talent. Those people are not the only one in the world. Atm Cloud Imperium Games has one of the best game developers around, and all these people have worked at numbers of movie projects and other big games before. So The Initiative is nothing spectacular atm..
 
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Gavon West

Gavon West

Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
Snake29 said:
Bullshit, because you don't know where people from other big AAA studio's have worked before. Go follow every single dev from some other big AAA studio and you'll find out where they worked before. Then this news about every developer who joins The Initiative isn't that special.

It's nothing different, and The Initiative is still small. People act as if this is already some big studio with hundreds of devs.



That same guy also worked for Sony...what's the difference now? He is just a software engineering, not a scientist or astronaut.



Those numbers are "staff'' not actual developers. 100 343 is total staff, 100 Ninja Theory is total staff, 800 Rockstar is total staff, 400 Naughty Dog is total staff. All are not total developers. Every studio wants to have the best talent. Those people are not the only one in the world. Atm Cloud Imperium Games has one of the best game developers around, and all these people have worked at numbers of movie projects and other big games before. So The Initiative is nothing spectacular atm..
Click to expand...
Well, sure. Except it is.

No need to be so salty or downplay it. They have some top tier developers in the ranks - that much is certain, and it's for a specific reason.
 
Snake29

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
Gavon West said:
Well, sure. Except it is.

No need to be so salty or downplay it. They have some top tier developers in the ranks - that much is certain, and it's for a specific reason.
Click to expand...

When a studio is already "overhyped" by it's name, The pressure and disappointment will be bigger in the end. They need to bring something first before we can get hyped. Bringing top tier devs to a studio is nothing new.

The only difference here is we look at each individual, making it look like it's something "new" in the game industry. It's social media that gives us more information to follow.

It was the same shit 10 years ago, only internet and social media was different and People hardly knew who the developers were.
 
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Gavon West

Gavon West

Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
Bryank75 said:
I understand why the Xbox fans are so excited,

Many people believed engineering to be actual magic before they understood what was going on.
It must be truly astounding for them to have somebody who was once involved with these games they hear so much about "PlayStation exclusives", gaming unicorns... now on their side.
Click to expand...
Damn you sound salty. Nice job!
 
thelastword

thelastword

Banned
So many XBOX fans hyped for devs who worked on Sony games which they didn't care for or which they watched on YouTube...…..Scintillating stuff.....

kevin_trinh said:
Xbox need to show the "talented staff", because outside of this they have nothing to show, only "promise"
Click to expand...
By the way Initiative is going, we'll be lucky to get a game out of these guys by the end of next gen...….
 
Bernkastel

Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
thelastword said:
So many XBOX fans hyped for devs who worked on Sony games which they didn't care for or which they watched on YouTube...…..Scintillating stuff.....


By the way Initiative is going, we'll be lucky to get a game out of these guys by the end of next gen...….
Click to expand...
Yeah all those 'Sony devs' were created by Kutaragi in incubation centres.
 
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