Last week’s surprise departure of Phil Spencer from Microsoft led to the promotion of Asha Sharma, who comes to head Microsoft’s gaming division after two years as president of the company’s CoreAI Product group. Despite that recent history, Sharma says in a new interview that she has “no tolerance for bad AI” in game development.
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Meanwhile the head of another Soulless Tech Corporation Hellbent On Dehumanizing Game Development In Every Sense Of The Word “Dehumanize” Possible reminds us…
CEO Tim Sweeney says requiring developers to disclose their use of AI tools is as relevant as disclosing “what shampoo brand the developer uses,”
What the F***, yes it is.
(that’s arstechnica saying that though, not the new xbox boss person)
It is not a requirement, but is a fucking insane bonus if CEO is into gaming.
They just made a small typo, it can happen to everyone.
This quote reminds me of the owner of this one TTRPG and card shop in my area. If you try to talk to him about literally anything he sells he will straight tell you he does not care about anything he sells. All the nerdy shit under one roof and his ass is there because nerds will pay through the nose for it.
Needless to say I shop at the store where the owner participates on FNM every week and runs D&D campaigns.
That’s a bit different, because he’s selling finished products. He can just check all the boxes from star wars over dnd to collectible card games and order the value pack from a middle man and then it’s all about the location of the shop and the competition in the area.
You don’t have to understand why a specific product works if what you’re doing is essentially providing a mixed physical storefront for a bunch of corporations.
But this lady is now going to have to make important strategic decisions, about which games to give funding, which ones to cancel, what kind of hardware to even envision.
Compare it to valve, who sat down and build their own controller and handheld, because they looked at 20 years of market and product development and thought they could do better and delivered. You have to know a lot about why you want hardware for what purpose and what makes it better or worse for that purpose to do that.
XBOX, theoretically, same as any other big name in media, could be the place where a new media franchise is born that dominates the next 50 years of pop culture. THAT is the kind of position this is.
That they won’t because they can’t “build the next skyrim / WoW” is kind of the problem.
i guess you dont if you know exactly what gamers want and youre a marketing genius. but i doubt thats the case and being into gaming would certainly help
The whole reason we’re in this mess with AAA is solely because of suits with no gaming interest whatsoever making all the decisions to please shareholders
Wait wait but what if we made fps games like casinos?
And, stay with me now - manipulate children to create generational gambling addicts - ooohohoo think of all the easy money flowing in!
It’s like when new logitech ceo (ex-unilever, non-tech) comes up with the idea of subscription mouse.
There are exceptions to this. There are wonderful game designers that personally don’t play video games.
I really doubt this woman is an exception though
It sucks to say, but I’d actually wager there’s more game developers and designers that don’t play games regularly than ones that do. The time and mental investment necessary to create games doesn’t tend to leave much room for enjoying them.
But probably really should at least consider yourself a fan of games in the industry, even if you can’t keep up playing the latest and greatest.
As long as they’re at least playing their own games then that’s fine
You can be into games without playing them and I’d argue you’re likely into them if your making them
I’d go further and compare this to actors who many times will never watch the finished product. IIRC, John de Lancie voiced Discord in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic but never watched any of the episodes until the fandom really took off. He was surprised this small role he forgot he even did gained such popularity! I’m sure he’s seen a number of episodes by now, especially since he later reprised his role
Hiroshi Yamauchi wasn’t much of a gamer, but he made Nintendo a gaming juggernaut.
He also had honor and dignity. Rare attributes in company leadership these days.