Hello, just wanted to share my story as a reminder with all the lay offs in the gaming industry, it has been terrible outside of it too. I’ve been working as an automation QA for a pretty decent software company and I was about to hit like 11 years on the job. Also on the side I’ve been trying to get my own indie game dev studio off the ground with releasing 3 small games in the past 3 years.

After saving for like 10 years and living in small rented apartments, last summer I finally managed to secure enough money so I can get a loan to buy my first apartment. After a year of dealing with contractors (yes, they are that slow!!!) I finally moved and was hoping to be able to focus my free time on my game again. However literally first Monday we have a meeting with a head of our department and they said we are practically being replaced with A.I. So around 60% of the company is gone across all offices in 3 different continents…

I guess my dream has always been to go full time game dev, it’s just I was hoping to be able to do it on my own terms and not kinda being forced into it. But with no real money coming in from my previous games I might not be able to make payments for the place I bought and spent most of my adult life saving for.

So now I guess I don’t have a choice but to go all in on my current game. If you want to check it out and leave feedback on how it looks or even wishlist, you can so here STEAM

Wish me luck guys and gals!

  • raze2012@lemmy.worldEnglish
    441·
    3 days ago

    Man, I’m a laid off dev too. You really should know by now how scrutinous people are about AI anything.

    You’re not even getting the 100 dollar monthly payments off steam. Forget “just use google translate like pre-AI”, why not just focus on one language and look into localization later if this game catches on? Now instead all languages will be scanning your game with a fine-toothed comb.

    • Sandbar_Trekker@piefed.zipEnglish
      25·
      2 days ago

      You really should know by now how scrutinous people are about AI anything.

      Well, we are on the Fediverse here where there’s a very loud echo chamber of anti-AI sentiment. Outside of this bubble, there’s a loud minority that’s anti-AI, but the vast majority of end users are more neutral on the subject.

      • raze2012@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        but the vast majority of end users are more neutral on the subject.

        Not in the last 9 months or so. Even if people ignored everything else, data centers have been awful PR since that is only adding to the affordability crisis on people’s energy bills. AI sentiment in the West has completely turned around in the last 2 years.

        As an indie dev at the scale of “not even getting 100 dollar paychecks” , your audience for the few few dozen reviews (the most important) are more likely to be these niches who are looking to try smaller stuff. And who’s more sensitive to slop than the mainstream. You gotta be careful with your PR, especially in your writing and art.

      • detren@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        7·
        2 days ago

        That’s completely incorrect when it comes to gaming, especially the indie gaming scene. Every use of AI that has been found in an indie game has had a lot of controversy to it. Look at The Alters from last year for example. There’s a large enough amount of indie gamers that REALLY hate AI and WILL boycott a game over it. Those people are also usually the most open to new and weird indie games.