Jess Birch @shivoa@mastodon.gamedev.place

This is possibly expecting too much but maybe the media covering games could give as much attention to the layoffs at Trion Worlds as they did Telltale Games. I'm also wondering if the labour situation at Rockstar Games is covered to this extent because of the studio involved rather than the working conditions & what that means for devs at far less famous studios (or completely outside the AAA ecosystem) who might get leverage from coverage of their situations.

An often ignored advantage of DRM-free is it empowers your customers to protest store platforms. If a store operator is repeatedly disappointing customers, they can download their purchases and close their accounts (a far more visible protest, often with a "reason" field vs just stopping using the store).
It's something to consider when doing patching - a classic standalone patch might be needed for customers who no longer have a store relationship.

If you're a lead at a European studio, push your executives/HR to publish the percentage of devs who have opted out of the Working Time Directive.
Push to lower the percentage in order to attract more experienced devs looking for long-term careers. Show your studio understands crunch isn't sustainable.

And here's a blog post explaining the why and how behind it: https://pharr.org/matt/blog/2018/10/15/pbr-online.html

Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation is online, with plans for annual updates supported by https://www.patreon.com/pbrbook/

MSI apparently lied about the motherboard they sold me, but also it's not bad at what it does for the price. Really wish companies would avoid tarnishing their brand by lying (they've assembled a competent product - sell me on that). https://www.anandtech.com/show/12990/the-msi-x470-gaming-plus-review/9

Me: "Urgh, only one body type & all the clothes unlock via gambling mechanics."
Also me: "But this is a pretty cute look. Praise to RNGesus."

TIL if you feed nVidia's Vulkan driver a SPV file that actually contains GLSL source not SPIR-V, it just compiles is. Even if the extension to do this isn't enabled.
Certainly an interesting gotcha for anyone starting out if they develop on nVidia and didn't read the documentation on shaders for Vulkan.

Downloading the 132 GB installer for Gears 4 (even on a reasonably fast internet connection) is making me think about how many of those assets are for a multiplayer mode I'm not interested in. Maybe offer a default without the highest textures (or take the small visual hit from only using compressed texture formats)?
Game stores need to offer more download choice (especially as more places get capped connections) & "4K textures" as free DLC seems like it should be the norm until then.

"HDR" is a 400-600 nits TV which, if you're lucky, has a 10-bit panel.
"HDR" is a 1/2.3" phone sensor taking some +/-2EV shots combined with local tone mapping.
But a 13 to 15 stops dynamic range large sensor camera capturing raw output is LDR? I think we need some new terminology because it's way too easy to talk past each other trying to discuss what is and isn't a high dynamic range.

Hope everyone at Telltale Games finds new employment opportunities quickly (or investment in a new startup trying to do something like that without the IP costs and management).
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/327085/Report_The_Walking_Dead_developer_Telltale_Games_closing_down.php

Some games almost feel too full of content. I'm yet to find one where that alleviated my negative experience of aggressive paid DLC plans.
I'm thinking Early Access, how GT Sport handled it, or the Paradox model are much better strategies for pushing a living game. Hold back more content then polish it as free updates, with the help of community feedback from the base game. https://blog.shivoa.net/2018/09/the-free-dlc-driving-customer-delight.html

New GPU review day comes with some additional reading via Khronos: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Vulkan-1.1.85-Released (Looking forward to some tutorials from those who've been working with the closed beta.)

There has never been a better time to create things with code, to build on top of all the different platforms and ecosystems that have grown up.
That doesn't mean it is never frustrating, or necessarily easy, but we shouldn't despair. Progress is all around us.