Hi folks, hope you are all doing well, thank you for being here today. I've just got a short update on the resolutions coming from the game dev council this quarter.
Yeah, no, this will all be in the official minutes of the meeting but you know we like to get the information out to you folks ASAP. So, three agenda items for today.
First of all, and I know this is a highly-anticipated change, we're doing some adjustments to the discourse calendar. We're retiring cliffski discourse, and we're moving unpaid labor discourse to November. Our new discourse topic for March is "why does nobody hire juniors." I know, I know a lot of you are really excited for this one. We are too, we've been looking for space to get that one in there for years now, so this I think is going to be well-received.
Moving along, starting in June, you are no longer required to say "ship it" whenever someone posts a funny screenshot of a bug or glitch in Slack. Yeah the reasoning behind that one is just that, we've found that a lot of people already weren't enthusiastic about complying, and I think we wanted to increase the salience of saying "ship it" a little bit. Keep in mind that if someone posts a video of a funny bug or glitch, you are still required to say "ship it" in response.
And finally, our last agenda item for the day, this is really just housekeeping, but as you know we continuously adjust which game genres are 'in' and which are 'out' for purposes of publisher deals and marketing. Starting also in June, boomer shooters and rural life sims are now over. We are scheduling masocore platformers for a revival at that time, so please adjust your pitches and marketing cadence accordingly.
Thank you, that will be all, I will not be taking questions at this time but we will be having a Q&A session with the council next Thursday. Have a great rest of your day.
Wow!!!
What a wild and triumphant ride. I think it's easy to say now that the game is an incredible success, looking back at the outcomes and legacy of it. I still get fan art and mail about the game - it's obviously continuing to resonate.
The part that I'm happiest about, though, is seeing the people who helped me to make this go on to do amazing things - multiple of the writers on this game are now narrative directors or senior narrative designers on bigger games, and some of the things they work on make me green with envy. I'm not going to list everyone here because there's a lot and I've put up the posters.
The music, composed by Ryan Ike, is constantly mentioned when people are talking about their favorite video game tracks. Until it was reprinted recently the vinyl was going for like $300 on discogs! I think we're still probably one of the few games with an original gospel song on the soundtrack.
The art crops up everywhere too, Kellan Jett's amazing work there really helps the game to stand out, plus the realization of that in 3D by Lauren Cason, and the continuation of that work from Serenity Forge, plus contributions by several other talented artists.
And it's not just them - one of the voice actors (a first-time video game performer!) is in the middle of a world concert tour, filling arenas! Glad we could be such a launching pad for him.
But actually I'm really proud of everything we made. What a weird cool important game. Thanks to the talented writers, thanks to Laura Michet for being an incredible editor and more, thanks to Serenity Forge for all their hard work with the original title and the console release, and thanks to Good Shepherd for publishing a bleak narrative game about the failures of the American dream.
I was (infamously, unfortunately) down about the game's commercial prospects soon after release, but while it's true it didn't make me independently wealthy, it's actually been a very successful game even in that metric - certainly far better than the vast majority of games, and better than I think I should have expected!
I wrote a post-mortem a few months after it came out but that was incorrect; it should instead have been a post-partum because the game continues to be played and loved and discussed, even five years after its release. And it might very well keep being played for another five years.
Thanks, everyone! I hope you find what you're looking for.
Me sowing: Ahh, the difficult labor of the fields. But I will be happy for this when harvest time comes!
Me reaping: Look at this bountiful harvest! Enough to feed my family through the winter months plus bring to market to trade for all our other needs, and put some away for harder times. What a fortunate life is that of the humble farmer!
