Former CA Dev Speaks on Reddit

[SBA77]

I know that someone else usually does this, but since he doesn't seem to be here right now I might as well do it. A former CA dev did an AMA on Reddit on November 30th 2023, and was taking questions. Also said AMA is apparently still going.

[dulany67]

Publicado originalmente por Man of Culture:

He made one of the most tone deaf comments I have ever laid eyes on. Every bit of ridicule he brought on himself. There should be no shame felt. If he had no shame posting THAT comment to the entire community then no one else should be ashamed of calling him out on the BS.

Its funny but I feel like the part where he said that they realize some won't be able to afford the dlc but that's why they have sales was the worst part of the statement.

That is something you will never, ever hear a company say. It's insulting and it's not true. Or it shouldn't be. Sales are there to drive revenue, to clear out inventory, or to drive traffic. Even if they do have a strategy to sell full price to whales and catch everyone else at the sale price, you would never say that.

It makes me think he was not the right person to address the situation, and I wonder how he was chosen. Was he a strong voice for increasing the price, or was he simply tossed out as a sacrificial lamb?

[Falaris]

Publicado originalmente por Man of Culture:

He made one of the most tone deaf comments I have ever laid eyes on. Every bit of ridicule he brought on himself. There should be no shame felt. If he had no shame posting THAT comment to the entire community then no one else should be ashamed of calling him out on the BS.

If making a tone deaf comment had any sort of real consequence, perhaps it would have merited half of the reaction it got. But it's not. It was overblown and ultimately a stupid distraction neither the community or CA needed.

Added irony bonus that the main gist of his (first) post was to ask people to stop doing personal attacks on devs.

[DatHomieShnitzel]

Publicado originalmente por dulany67:

Publicado originalmente por Man of Culture:

He made one of the most tone deaf comments I have ever laid eyes on. Every bit of ridicule he brought on himself. There should be no shame felt. If he had no shame posting THAT comment to the entire community then no one else should be ashamed of calling him out on the BS.

Its funny but I feel like the part where he said that they realize some won't be able to afford the dlc but that's why they have sales was the worst part of the statement.

That is something you will never, ever hear a company say. It's insulting and it's not true. Or it shouldn't be. Sales are there to drive revenue, to clear out inventory, or to drive traffic. Even if they do have a strategy to sell full price to whales and catch everyone else at the sale price, you would never say that.

It makes me think he was not the right person to address the situation, and I wonder how he was chosen. Was he a strong voice for increasing the price, or was he simply tossed out as a sacrificial lamb?

You say that but the 2020's thus far have been rife with "apologies" from big companies and somebody HAD to vet the apology in almost every single case.

[Man of Culture]

Publicado originalmente por TheRefinedHellion:

Publicado originalmente por dulany67:

Its funny but I feel like the part where he said that they realize some won't be able to afford the dlc but that's why they have sales was the worst part of the statement.

That is something you will never, ever hear a company say. It's insulting and it's not true. Or it shouldn't be. Sales are there to drive revenue, to clear out inventory, or to drive traffic. Even if they do have a strategy to sell full price to whales and catch everyone else at the sale price, you would never say that.

It makes me think he was not the right person to address the situation, and I wonder how he was chosen. Was he a strong voice for increasing the price, or was he simply tossed out as a sacrificial lamb?

You say that but the 2020's thus far have been rife with "apologies" from big companies and somebody HAD to vet the apology in almost every single case.

Then the logical conclusion is that everyone involved at that level of CA is incapable of knowing how to address a customer or potential customers. They're either vile or incompetent. There isn't really any other option there.

[Reeva!]

The ashamed part, nah. That shame goes to the person who thought addressing customers who literally fuel your business like that was acceptable on any level. It doesn't take a staggeringly high IQ to understand that when you try to strongarm people, they don't take kindly to it.

Whether they used him as a scapegoat, or took out their verbal frustrations on CA as a whole, doesn't matter in the slightest. The person who made that post clearly has 0 respect for people who indirectly put food on his shiny glass table, and CA has 0 grip on their employees until after a scandal breaks out.

Both are in the wrong. It's going to take a lot more than nuking the workshop 3 times in 1 week to fix that. Who knows when the next wage slave decides to insult everyone who paid for this game?

The workshop does a fine job at keeping this game alive, even with the PR nightmare. I don't know why they want to rock the boat with small patches that don't even do what the patchnotes say. It's like a frightened child haphazardly mowing the lawn cuz he did an oopsy earlier. If they calmed down, apologized properly, and never did it again, that'd be infinitely better than whatever this is. People don't 'want' to hate them. I certainly don't. They made my favourite game after all, I wanna love them, but it's like hugging a cactus at this point.

[Lamp]

Publicado originalmente por Reeva!:

People don't 'want' to hate them. I certainly don't. They made my favourite game after all, I wanna love them, but it's like hugging a cactus at this point.

Totally get this feeling. Love TW but WH3 has so many bad game design choices, RoC being the shining example. But even stuff like their DLC policy of 'make OP flashy race with absolutely no balance' since WH2 has been gross. I won't even start a rant on what WH3 calls "siege" but there's that, too.

Like CA couldn't squander much harder if they tried.

[Dork_Stalker_310]

Q: This probably falls under NDA, but can we expect a medieval/empire title in the next couple years?
A: NDA :)

Jeez, imagine seeing the state of affairs now and still being excited for Med 3 of all things. Can't wait for the William the Conqueror lord pack and Reconquista DLC!

[Imposter]

" Hyenas was pitched to SEGA independently of TW, and SEGA allocated a distinct budget for it"

"It affects the studio overall sure, and I reckon SEGA might now be a bit wary about handing money to CA without a solid return of investment forecast."(About Hyenas)

How is this CA's fault for the loss if "Hyenas" was pitched "independently"? It seems like CA was trying to help along an idea for a game. Any other "SEGA" subsidiary could have tried to develop it, and probably had the same results? ... IT doesn't make sense for Sega to do that specifically to CA.

[Dork_Stalker_310]

Publicado originalmente por Blasted:

" Hyenas was pitched to SEGA independently of TW, and SEGA allocated a distinct budget for it"

"It affects the studio overall sure, and I reckon SEGA might now be a bit wary about handing money to CA without a solid return of investment forecast."(About Hyenas)

How is this CA's fault for the loss if "Hyenas" was pitched "independently"?

Independently of Total War, not independently from CA.

Damn, I didn't even pay attention to it - and it's important. It means that Hyenas wasn't something that evil Sega strong armed poor CA into making - it was CA's pet project through and through, apparently. The one they pitched and wanted to make, because live-service looter-shooters may make huge cash.

[Risotto]

Publicado originalmente por Man of Culture:

Publicado originalmente por Filthy Pollo 🐔:

"I have no clue; I had already left by then. Does it even matter? I find the reactions from some folks quite shocking. He gets slammed for a bad blog post and suddenly he's the root of all evil? I never worked directly with him. Honestly, just going with my gut, he wasn't my favorite C-suite. But the guy stuck around at CA for like 10 years or something. He must care. Plus, ]I believe he's the one who brought GW to CA and handled other partnerships. He's still a human being. He's not fueling a Ferrari with the blood of players and developers.

Those who made him a scapegoat should feel

ashamed of themselves."

He made one of the most tone deaf comments I have ever laid eyes on. Every bit of ridicule he brought on himself. There should be no shame felt. If he had no shame posting THAT comment to the entire community then no one else should be ashamed of calling him out on the BS.

Its a video game. Ground yourself in reality some time.

Some of you legit act like he marched into poland with an army.

[Багряный]

Publicado originalmente por Dork_Stalker_310:

Publicado originalmente por Blasted:

" Hyenas was pitched to SEGA independently of TW, and SEGA allocated a distinct budget for it"

"It affects the studio overall sure, and I reckon SEGA might now be a bit wary about handing money to CA without a solid return of investment forecast."(About Hyenas)

How is this CA's fault for the loss if "Hyenas" was pitched "independently"?

Independently of Total War, not independently from CA.

Damn, I didn't even pay attention to it - and it's important. It means that Hyenas wasn't something that evil Sega strong armed poor CA into making - it was CA's pet project through and through, apparently. The one they pitched and wanted to make, because live-service looter-shooters may make huge cash.

While their team includes people who create and approve Cylostra Direfin, it is obvious that they have no chance of success in such projects

[John Cena]

Publicado originalmente por Blasted:

" Hyenas was pitched to SEGA independently of TW, and SEGA allocated a distinct budget for it"

"It affects the studio overall sure, and I reckon SEGA might now be a bit wary about handing money to CA without a solid return of investment forecast."(About Hyenas)

How is this CA's fault for the loss if "Hyenas" was pitched "independently"? It seems like CA was trying to help along an idea for a game. Any other "SEGA" subsidiary could have tried to develop it, and probably had the same results? ... IT doesn't make sense for Sega to do that specifically to CA.

I don't understand your question.

CA pitched Hyenas.
CA allocated funds and manpower towards Hyenas.
CA lead development on Hyenas.
CA failed to develop Hyenas.
CA failed to provide a clear direction and monetization plan for Hyenas.
CA failed to generate hype for Hyenas.
Sega canceled Hyenas.

CA lead the charge and failed. Instead of asking for more investment into Total War they went and did this. This is probably the biggest gaming failure of 2023. It could go on to be the biggest failure in gaming for the decade. $100 million is now gone. There is nothing to show for it.

These problems don't occur overnight. They are the result of years of failures.

[HolyGrail]

Publicado originalmente por TheRefinedHellion:

Publicado originalmente por dulany67:

Its funny but I feel like the part where he said that they realize some won't be able to afford the dlc but that's why they have sales was the worst part of the statement.

That is something you will never, ever hear a company say. It's insulting and it's not true. Or it shouldn't be. Sales are there to drive revenue, to clear out inventory, or to drive traffic. Even if they do have a strategy to sell full price to whales and catch everyone else at the sale price, you would never say that.

It makes me think he was not the right person to address the situation, and I wonder how he was chosen. Was he a strong voice for increasing the price, or was he simply tossed out as a sacrificial lamb?

You say that but the 2020's thus far have been rife with "apologies" from big companies and somebody HAD to vet the apology in almost every single case.

"almost" lol, the creators of the Gollum game used an AI to write their one.

[Chuckawookie]

Publicado originalmente por dulany67:

Publicado originalmente por Man of Culture:

He made one of the most tone deaf comments I have ever laid eyes on. Every bit of ridicule he brought on himself. There should be no shame felt. If he had no shame posting THAT comment to the entire community then no one else should be ashamed of calling him out on the BS.

Its funny but I feel like the part where he said that they realize some won't be able to afford the dlc but that's why they have sales was the worst part of the statement.

That is something you will never, ever hear a company say. It's insulting and it's not true. Or it shouldn't be. Sales are there to drive revenue, to clear out inventory, or to drive traffic. Even if they do have a strategy to sell full price to whales and catch everyone else at the sale price, you would never say that.

It makes me think he was not the right person to address the situation, and I wonder how he was chosen. Was he a strong voice for increasing the price, or was he simply tossed out as a sacrificial lamb?

I remember someone posting on reddit about him in the past. He made this same error back in Rome 2 when one the promotional images featured an eastern faction with camels etc that was 100% supposed to be in the base game but was instead sold as DLC. Everyone rightfully complained at the greed and old Rob came out in a blog post to point out that, and I'm paraphrasing, "these are not the camels you're looking for. They're totally different camels that look similar!"

[Aleera]

Publicado originalmente por Dork_Stalker_310:

Independently of Total War, not independently from CA.

Damn, I didn't even pay attention to it - and it's important. It means that Hyenas wasn't something that evil Sega strong armed poor CA into making - it was CA's pet project through and through, apparently. The one they pitched and wanted to make, because live-service looter-shooters may make huge cash.

Yes, but not as many people like to complain, that the development of Hyena's was at the expense of development in TW.

So many products in so many different forms of industry get made, only to be canceled before release or even earlier in development. A huge example would be the car industry.

No Lamborghini owner is angry at the company for developing the Fantasma.