For starters they keep making mostly the same game over and over. They’re essentially doing the Bethesda shtick except their end results are better. Sticking to stuff that can mostly be made in the same engine as the thing you finished 15 minutes ago is going to shave off a lot of time compared to making a new game.
Of course that’s not to shit on incremental improvements or engine reuse or anything. That is just sound thinking as long as the games are good.
I’d like to add that from a technical point of view, their games don’t really push the boundaries and at least on PC, their games often aren’t the most polished. Elden Ring had severe shader compilation stutter at launch and a 60 FPS limit - which is a big no-no on PC if you ask me. Nothing game breaking like the state some publishers (EA) release their games in, but not great either.
Not to mention they were actively hostile towards ultrawide gamers. The engine would render it, but then put black bars overtop the sides. Kind of amazing really that level of hatred towards gamers.
I think it’s less hatred and more… Not understanding the wider audience, afaik it’s just not as common in Japan for uw to be a thing in general. Also it adds even more complexity to performance tuning which… They’re not known for. They clearly make games targeted for consoles over PC, the Bethesda comparison is pretty apt in engine reuse and odd decisions to limit fps/uw gaming, Bethesda is at least more open towards modding, but they also don’t make multiplayer games mainly, and while the MP aspects of FromSoft games are unusual, it’s definitely a large part of the appeal/design process and does inherently limit modding due to cheating.
It’s not common, period, but because the people most likely to brag about a setup are those with more money than good sense, it gets misrepresented. Same deal with top of the line hardware – look at Steam surveys, most people are still gaming with 5+ year old hardware.
You’re the weirdo for having a weird monitor…
They also had great success with Sekiro, which was (and still is) very different from their other titles.
It’s still the same engine and general gameplay concept though. The combat was the big difference.
This studio is not just known for an even by Japanese standards exploitative work culture, but it also reuses assets of all kinds far more liberally than other developers. Art is by far the biggest cost factor in games development and they are taking significant shortcuts wherever they can.
It’s also a Japanese company with Japanese work ethic.
I’d say it’s more because they’ve established a reputation and they’ve kept it up, which is were Japanese culture really shines. Compare it to, say, Blizzard, which cashed out and pissed its reputation away mostly. Sure, Japanese companies will try to cash out sometimes, but if there’s the possibility of them losing their reputation because of it, they will back off even at a loss and try to make up for it. Do not confuse with South Korean companies, by the way.
There were already some rumors about bad working conditions during the Dark Souls titles, now more with Elden Ring: https://www.ign.com/articles/elden-ring-developers-compare-working-at-fromsoftware-to-playing-dark-souls
Even with some negative accounts, other FromSoftware employees said working at the studio has been a great experience. One employee even likened it to FromSoftware’s own Dark Souls, saying, “There’s a lot of struggle to get things right, but if you get over the hump it is very satisfying. It’s just like you defeated a boss in Dark Souls.”
I’m not sure if we should be approaching work like Dark Souls.
I wouldn’t be surprised, but you also get those claims with a lot of Western developers as well. The only difference I’m seeing is how much more reputation is valued as opposed to something that can be sold off to the highest bidder.
So frequently? Dude it’s been like 2 years since they announced DLC for their last game and it’s only finally coming this June assuming it does not get delayed.
They also release real products and not “games as a service” shit.
You don’t have to actually finish the game when a bunch of marks will treat every bug and inconsistency as some grand difficulty hurdle and some deep lore the normies don’t understand
Tell me you’re shit at games without telling me you’re shit at games
You’re shit at games without telling me you’re shit at games.
I don’t kink shame!
I dunno. But I’d like to see queen pwnsalot blind fold play a fromsoft game.
If it was actually a blind fold
What is a AAA game? A game released by a large publisher? Is that the only criteria? Then the answer is “money”.
If a AAA game has to meet some level of quality control before it’s called AAA, why is Ubisoft and EA considered AAA?
It really comes down to money more than anything. Quality factors in very little. More marketing, higher budgets, larger teams.
I agree and disagree at the same time here. AAA should and used to signify a higher level of quality. Lately, though, it seems like they finally realized they could shovel shit and still turn a buck.
Yeah it definitely should be higher quality with all that money, but like you said, the rot of corporatism really fucks that up.
Just so surprising that treating staff well and keeping them around lets you do consistently high quality work. Boggles the mind really.
Well, this may not actually be the case. 7 or so years ago FromSoftware was pretty notoriously known to Japanese workers in the gaming industry to have very harsh working conditions, even among other Japanese studios that also have harsh conditions. Allegedly programmers at FromSoftware at that time were making an annual salary of only $27k USD. Compare this with Konami, who was paying an annual salary of $40k USD for the same position.
Its possible in the last 7 years things might have changed, but Japanese companies are usually very resistant to change. Japanese work culture honestly sucks, I would never want to.live in Japan because of this.
EDIT: You can see here that the overall worker satisfaction rating for FromSoftware is only 2.8 out of 5, which seems to be nearly the same as it used to be.
NOTE: Some readers may see something about the “Whiteness/Blackness” of the company. This has nothing to do with race or racism. This is a slang term from Japanese culture that refers to how ethical a company is. A company that is very unethical (overworking employees, borderline illegal treatment of employees, etc) is called a “Black Company,” and everyone will tell you to avoid them. Conversely a “White Company” would be a very ethical company and one that everyone would be fighting each other to work for.
Ah so FromSoft went pure black company tendency.
Well, I wouldn’t call From a Black Company. 2.4 White rating is almost exactly in the middle.
A real Black Company would be something like the V-Tuber Agency Wactor (and more recently maybe Nijisanji). This company has engaged in behaviour that is legitimately abusive to its employees, to the point that nearly all of its liver talents have quit.
For Black Companies, it is most common that there is bullying or some other kind of abuse from higher ups, as well as threats of disrepute if the abused employees quit voluntarily. This doesn’t seem to be the case with FromSoftware. Just that they don’t pay overtime because it is considered voluntary (incredibly common among Japanese companies) and pay below industry average.
Japanese work culture honestly sucks, I would never want to.live in Japan because of this.
You can find Western companies and semi-westernized Japanese companies where the work culture is better.
Yes, but in Japan the large majority of businesses are Japanese, and most conform to the expected conditions of underpaying or not paying for overtime (“voluntary overtime”), etc.
Just like there can be some companies that do the same thing in the USA, though it is not.common because there are laws specifically to prevent that.
I’m just saying that you can live in Japan and avoid this work culture.
Yes but it is easier to avoid the work culture if you do not live in Japan.
keeping them around
It’s rare for employees to move companies in Japan. A lot of people will work for the same company their whole life. Japanese companies aren’t really known for treating their employees well either.
I’d guess what they’re doing well is hiring employees that are very passionate. I hear the anime industry is the same in that people who are in it are willing to work themselves to death because they want to work on big name projects
Just be clear, there is a reason that’s not in the quotes of the title. The author basically makes up that they’re "treating staff well* because they’re not randomly firing people right now. (The empowering bit is basically fabricated)
