Rock Paper Shotgun

Amplitude have always used early access for their games, even before Steam Early Access was a thing. Ahead of Endless Space's release in July 2012, players who preordered the game got immediate access to an alpha build that was steadily patched and updated on the lead up to launch. To this day, the studio still uses its Games2Gether program, where they discuss design issues with players and poll them for thoughts on how to proceed. Right now, there are a small group of players giving feedback on the recently announced Humankind 2. However, as Amplitude prepare to launch Endless Legend 2 after a year in early access, co-founder and CEO Romain de Waubert de Genlis readily admits "The whole thing has changed over time." Read more

For the last few years I've been labouring to transform my terror of spiders into guarded appreciation, even wonder. I've been drawing pictures of spiders, and writing stories about them. When I spy a spyder (spider) in the wild, I make a strenuous display of hunkering down to utter words like "ooh, what a beautiful False Widow, such poetry of form". Then the spider moves a fraction, and I hoot and holler on out of there, pawing imaginary silk strands from my face. Videogames like Tumblebee are not helping with this endeavour. Read more

Update: The IWGB Games Worker Union have issued the following statement to RPS from vice-chair Ben Newbon: We cannot add any further insight into the heartbreaking job losses at BARB, a company that we think has been slowly spiralling for a long time. We came together to fight tooth and nail to prevent the hardworking people working there from such a fate after pouring their heart and soul into Minds Eye. We are proud of what we built there but still hearing of redundancies is always an injustice. We offer nothing but solidarity and support to everyone impacted by any job losses and remain committed to getting justice for BARB management’s treatment of workers and organising to root these practices out of the video games industry. Only by joining and becoming active in a trade union can we achieve these goals. Original story follows: Build a Rocket Boy (BARB), makers of panned futuristic action game/massive minigame platform MindsEye, appear to be making more staff redundant or able to seek other work. As part of a LinkedIn post indicating he's seeking opportunities elsewhere, a principal talent acquisition partner at the studio has written that he "will be seeing BARB through till the very end, helping wrap things up here in the HR department", which doesn't exactly paint a rosy picture of the company's future. Read more

Former Doom: The Dark Ages producer Andrew Willis has shared tuppence on the state of the blockbuster videogame trade, arguing that the biggest companies and most popular series are going through a familiar "cycle" whereby the moneyfolk finally displace the creatives, and start messing games up in the name of short-term returns. He reckons that the likes of Halo are well on their way to becoming "a dried husk of a product that everyone just now associates with like, slop". Read more

Bulkhead CEO Joe Brammer has revealed that the studio behind recent FPS hit Wardogs check the social media accounts of prospective hires for public criticism of crunch practices, and deliberately prefer to avoid bringing such folks on board. In the exec's view, devs working extra or long hours to get a game or update out of the door - otherwise known as crunch - "is going to happen at some point", even if the studio "always try and avoid it". Read more