He’s just salty that he left Blizzard to found a failed developer that released a failed shooter no one remembers and now he won’t be getting any of that MS money when the purchase completes so he’s on a crusade for clout with console warriors.
Yeah "virtue signalling" is definitely apt. This line of thinking the past few years is starting to get annoying. "The lower level guys, the ones that make up the majority of the development pool, are soulful and bursting with creativity, only being shackled by the money-hungry, walk-on-corpses, capitalist management pigs". It's an easy way to shit talk and tell how you really feel without enraging the masses of devs, since "You are not the problem, it's the top 1%" and that nebulous 1% is too small for anyone to care, really. "They are rich already, who gives a fuck". Notice he doesn't name specific names at Bethesda management, he leaves it vague to not cut industry ties and career opportunities.
There isn't any specific cause i can pinpoint but what i notice are people in business that are worried with things that don't pertain to the company in question, obsessed with specific trends or ideas without understanding them, too into corporate culture or some type of corporate identy, sometimes just too full of themselves. And honestly this isn't something i see in gaming only, it plagues other areas too.
I care mainly because their decision is bad enough that could lead to the delisting of many great games. There are many ways they could've increased their revenue, sales royalties or fee based on sales/downloads-per-user but somehow they settled for a weird esoteric solution that even breaks their own TOS, and could obviously make way for lawsuits. It really cant be explained away without considering their leadership was being utterly incompetent.
Welcome to American work culture. Yes men.
Vision yes, micromanaging every design decision - no. Devs will be up in flames if the suits will ask them to justify all their design choices, you won’t hear the end of how it “destroys creativity”.
The vision comes to the top and each team ladders up their own work and objectives to that vision. It's not about micro-management, it's about having a clear 'north star' for a company or product that says we want to deliver this. Creativity comes in finding the best ways, at every level, to deliver on that promise, from engine architecture and tools to quest design and writing.
Fixed
i'm pretty sure this kind of management philosophy varies from workplace to workplace. Some may be more rigid on what can and can't be done/changed, others may give employees more leeway, etc. Basically both of your experiences can be true and in the end we really don't know whats up at Bethesda.
