Sega has revealed that they’re offering four limited-time titles on PC from October 18 to October 19: Golden Axed, Streets of Kamurocho, Endless Zone, and Armor of Heroes.
Many are celebrating this, stating that Sega is ‘hitting all of the right notes’ in their recent push into the PC space after they realized, to much surprise coming from only them, that there is actually a massive user base on the PC after releasing Persona 4 Golden years after its original release.
A developer has noted his surprise that the title has somehow reared its head once more, and offered insight into what actually happened to what should have been the long-awaited sequel to Golden Axe before SEGA Studios Australia closed their doors in 2013.
We’ll preface the Twitter thread with this: the gaming industry as a whole can be an extremely toxic place to work, where suits chafe against developers which chafe against the player base; inhumane hours and low salaries are the norms, and mentions of developers being forced into crunches are faced with relative indifference from fans as the online era has resulted in a general loss of empathy and nuance.
Yet perhaps it’s best that we simply post the Twitter thread from developer Tim Dawson, and let everyone see what the internals of the gaming industry that we all love can often look like.
https://twitter.com/ironicaccount/status/1316622931191947264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/ironicaccount/status/1316623374911598593?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/ironicaccount/status/1316623377654640641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/ironicaccount/status/1316624044364492800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/ironicaccount/status/1316624390532947968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/ironicaccount/status/1316624393942913024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/ironicaccount/status/1316624874849226752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/ironicaccount/status/1316625269248061440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Shortly after the thread was posted, the cited segment where Golden Axed is noted as subpar has since been removed.
https://twitter.com/ironicaccount/status/1316676298429796352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The nightmarish exchange between developers and suits offering bizarre timeframes that aren’t grounded in reality has been a common mantra we’ve seen over the years from developers that echo the sentiment of Tim Dawson in telling the corporations to get bent; a sign of burn-out that typically comes after outlandish development pacing from people that tend to struggle to understand what gaming actually revolves around.
It may be difficult to understand how best to apply this knowledge, that some developers feel trapped in a personal hellscape wedged firmly between demand and profit, yet the only entities that can provide the necessary supply.
Yet in light of Cyberpunk 2077 being announced as in a desperate crunch, where developers are working six days a week with similarly obscene hours that seem to match Tim Dawson’s story, yet are eclipsed by users in hype and anticipation of the title releasing.
With the ever-increasing relevance and popularity of video games, it continues to be an industry where aspiring developers want to work, and in turn, allows for cheap labor for large corporations. Whether there can be a solution to the issue that doesn’t involve unions is still the source of contention.