Gaming industry rn Day 1: celebrating an (indie) game getting ultra-mega-massive success Day 2: mourning the loss of jobs in (less successful) studios Day 3: repeat (It’s almost as if there’s a connection to be drawn there in a finite market with increasing competition)

En même temps, la compétition est largement encouragée par les éditeurs/investisseurs indépendants qui attendent de plus en plus tard pour s'engager sur les projets. Sauf qu'un jeu prend du temps, les pro avec de l'expérience ont des enfants, des crédits et ne peuvent pas se le permettre

Moi la semaine dernière: les températures sont pas mal retombées, c'est cool pour une fois on va pas crever de chaud au Game Camp La météo à Lille la semaine prochaine:

Two things can be true at once: - Steam is an incredible platform with tons of qualities for both gamers and developers - Steam has an effective monopoly and that poses a unique risk, so they should be under scrutiny

I get no longer having the internal expertise/people/tools to make a beautiful 2D game but, like, why remaking the exact same levels and story and mechanics (with a bunch of bonuses)?? It feels like one of these Disney "live action" remakes

Honnestly, if I'm Ubisoft I'd start remaking my entire catalogue at this point. Scrap the new IPs, the ambitious sequels. Focus on execution speed, empowering a new generation of developers. People just want the same games they played 10 years ago, it's a fraction of the risk, so why not?

Best game ever

There's a trend in recent years for game schools to have 15-20 students on a single final-year project and I don't get how this is helping them to find jobs? Seems like they're instructed to optimize for beauty in order to get awards and release on Steam, but does that teach them well?

Am I the only one noticing an increase in « we’d be fine if publishers/investors weren’t so greedy » as of late ? It has become sort of a norm on social media to claim that a game isn’t a failure but a mild success or that it was going to climb back up if given the time.

My time working on the VR games with them was amazing, some of the fondest memories of my experience at Ubisoft. Wish I had the opportunity to visit them, almost happened but the trip was always pushed back.

Sandfall & Clair Obscur did irreversible damage to the industry by restarting once more the whole « why don’t AAA studios make games faster with smaller teams that they can sell cheaper ». I’m not kidding, Jason Schreier litterally wrote an article about this being a talking point at DICE

If we win this, I don’t know what I’m gonna do yet but it’s going to be crazy. Starvaders already won over Drop Duchy at the Thinky Game awards though, so the odds aren’t looking likely …

I'm seeing this reaction to Highguard's studio downscaling everywhere, and it makes me realize how most players don't have any idea how much games cost and how much they make. "Just keep it running, it could be profitable eventually!" or it could burn more cash and doom the other employees.

So, they really did want to shadow drop that game, the Game Awards was a bonus. It did create mystery and attracted crowds on launch, but the lack of pre-release feedback will definitely hurt them more unless they release quick updates (a mode above 3v3 for instance) kotaku.com/highguard-ga...

Ubisoft number 1 problem is that it has lost its capacity to ship game efficiently, and it seems like the top management isn’t even trying to course correct. Will there be deep dive audits to understand how all these projects can be behind schedule all at once? How is this even possible

2026 is still the year of Drop Duchy !

Drop Duchy is finalists for Strategy game of the year at the DICE awards, wtf www.interactive.org/awards/29th_...

The story behind this must be crazy. Announcing a game with a single cinematic trailer, no info anywhere (not even the Steam page has details), no gameplay, no screenshots Are they rushing the release because they’re going bankrupt but the game awards thing was planned long time ago?

The Steam replay is the depressing annual reminder that players do not purchase new games and stick to the very few they already know

To add insult to injury, the default Steam Deck settings (which you can’t change) look truly awful when you can find on the web some console config that makes it look much better (at the cost of dropping to 28 FPS occasionally). But hey, the game’s great right ?

Valve when indies try to make their game Steam Deck verified: « this text is font size 10, we require making them to be 11 minimum » Valve after E33 makes an update to « improve some texts legibility » (taking them from 5 to 6): « here’s your well-deserved green badge » (Yes I’m salty)

Merci pour l'invitation sur Point'n Think pour parler de Drop Duchy, toujous un plaisir de parler de la production du jeu (spoiler: ça s'est bien passé, faut le dire aussi quand c'est cool) podcast.ausha.co/point-n-thin...

People over here and on Reddit unanimously react by saying « no it’s you, your games are bad, always the same formula!! » but it’s the truth. Ubisoft used to thrive on games that weren’t super great or original but had enough quantity to be attractive 10-15 years ago. This is their tragedy.

Life has been so surreal since this game comes out, it’s not a big hit but getting such recognition is truly awesome!

Maybe I'm just old but I find it annoying when roguelites conceal their ending condition for ... mystery? I'm ok with mysteries & secret endings but playing CloverPit right now and having to look on reddit for "the dev said on stream that it triggers when.." doesn't sit right to me.

My gaming pet peeve is journalists/Linkedin influencers who use the annual number of Steam releases to make dramatic articles about the state of gaming, without doing any research to back their claims with actual data. Sorry, I love the guy and his books/articles, but not this one...

Publisher ghosting is a real annoyance in the gaming industry but after releasing Drop Duchy, I discovered something even worse: people who reach out to you for interviews/partnerships/events/etc and then stop responding after you said you’re interested. Why contact me in the first place then?

Ok, the game is extremely anticipated, people would have paid any amount for it and that’s awesome for Team Cherry. But worshipping them like they’re some sort of industry saviors for not selling it for a higher price??? Yeah, that’s going to far imo

This. I’d go even further and say that when you’re the most anticipated game of the year, you shouldn’t go with a « let’s get all the Gamescom attention on us » strategy. You can do it at anytime and get the same results, while others have this one silver bullet to thrive.

I've been playing Skull & Bones a lot lately for... huh... research... and I've never seen anything like it. There are so many mechanics, so much content, but the game doesn't seem at all interested in onboarding the player. Everything is just ... overwhelming?

Bruhh

LinkedIn influencers are unironically sharing this advice all day long, using Clair Obscur and Balatro as proofs that the strategy 100% work

The game works much better than I anticipated, and all I can think about is that I have to redo all my plans for the studio now…

Even if I'm not fond of the concept of noting games, I've got to admit that waking up to this makes me proud www.metacritic.com/game/drop-du...

Drop Duchy is now AVAILABLE on Steam! 🧩 build your duchy piece by piece ⚔️ rally your forces and storm through fierce armies 🃏 customize your deck with +110 unique (unlockable) cards 🔁 enjoy endless replayability in this hybrid rogue-lite game 🔗 store.steampowered.com/app/2525310/...

What if Blue Prince final unsolved puzzle was: why did the creator threw away such a perfect game loop to create a subpar meta-escape room?

#DropDuchy new demo is LIVE on Steam! 🧩 Build your Duchy piece by piece ⚔️ Prepare your forces to storm through fierce armies 👑 Learn to master the power of the City with the new Republic faction 🃏 Customize your deck to suit your strategy 🔁 Enjoy unlimited runs!

Mon processus de conception sur ce jeu:

Drop Duchy’s demo is available NOW on Steam! 🧩 Build your Duchy piece by piece ⚔️ Prepare your forces to storm through fierce armies 🃏 Customize your deck to suit your strategy and optimize your realm’s growth 🔁 Enjoy endless replayability in this hybrid rogue-lite game youtu.be/BSeCdQJpjVY

Game dev logic be like "can't wait to be on holiday so I can take a well-deserved break ... and play my own game"