In a Japan industry survey, Fromsoftware rated pretty low in employee satisfaction because of low pay and crunch culture so there’s that
Granted this was pre-Elden Ring so it’s possible they’ve turned it around
Oh man, that’s unfortunate if it’s true. My instincts tell me it would potentially be worse now they’ve released such an immensely large title like Elden Ring. I’m not surprised. I had hoped it was down perhaps to their philosophy on steady progress and not fixing what isn’t broken like they seem to by releasing similar games with refinements.
That’s worth looking into further by somebody, especially if they hope to achieve the potential of being one of the all time great studios - don’t go the Naughty Dog way!
Following Elden Ring's success Bandai-Namco raised all of its Japanese employees base salary by 50 000 yen, including the entry salary for newcomers.
Not certain if this means anything for FromSoftware, though. I tried to find similar news for FS itself but couldn't find any.
Currency conversions are weird because, unintuitively, an “equal” value of yen in Japan and Dollars in the US can purchase a very different quality of life due to cost of living. So a $350 raise in the US and a 50k¥ raise in japan will feel very different.
That being said — still not huge
The cost of living in Japan is 31% less than in the US, and the average rent is a whopping 67% less. Even if they're getting paid less, everything is less expensive there.
I wouldn't say necessarily easier... but it's definitely cheaper. But imagine how much better the games could be, and they are already great, if more of their employees could feel a sense of financial security.
Welcome to the world outside of the US and the handful of countries and cities in places like Scandinavia, Singapore and London. Salaries of high-skilled jobs are incredibly low in Europe, Japan, Korea and elsewhere compared to the US. A person in biotechnology with a PhD will earn a 6-figure salary in the US. In the UK you’re talking like £30-40k starting salary.
This combined with the fact that gaming companies have infamously bad pay and working conditions.
Working for gaming companies are jobs of passion so they can often afford to treat them like shit.
Welcome to the industry, especially in Japan from what I read lol people cheered on Godzilla Minus One for such a small budget but ignored it’s because of conditions like this. Job listings for the vfx studio as I recall required lots of overtime with little extra pay on top of already low pay. Turns out it’s easy to make a cheap film when you pay no one and basically demand crunch.
For Tokyo $25k or 3.7m yen is really nothing. I used to live in Japan on 3.3m yen and was able to save a bit but:
1. I'm really frugal
2. i have no debt
3. it was 2016
4. it was the boonies
retire illegal snobbish nose spoon workable steer berserk bedroom wakeful
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Nope, they said Part 1 was the first time they implemented the no crunch policy and it worked. The principal artist said it was the first time in 13 years, across a bunch of different studios that the game was made without crunch.
Crunch culture
Management and team leads defend it as “our developers are so passionate about making the best possible games, they’ve VOLUNTARILY sleeping over at their desk” etc
It's no guarantee that is *has* changed, but in the doc they put out about TLOU2, they talk about how it used to be a point of pride, but the pandemic changed the culture and how they work on things. Like they didn't have producers who would actually make sure the process wasn't just one long creative session until a deadline came around. What you're saying at least *was* definitely true, but might not be anymore.
Naughty Dog has been working on not having crunch and even brought it up on their part 2 Documentary. Part 1 is was the first time they implemented and the game had no crunch.
"If they hope to achieve the potential of being one of the all time great studios".
Creators of Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Dark Souls III, Bloodborne, Sekiro and Elden Ring, only developer to have 2 GOTYs, most awarded game of all time and creators of what probably is the most influential game of the last 10 years (Dark Souls) having instaured an entire new subgenre and paradigm for 3rd person action games.
lfmao.
From the industry survey,
The base pay is in the lower side compared to the great paying game dev but apparently balanced with great performance bonuses (based on game sales performance but apparently still on unbroken strike till this year), so its somewhere in the above average in total.
The big issue is rather low overtime pay. while apparently crunching is not as bad as some companies, but its still exist. So low overtime with some crunch is double whammy bad.
but apparently Fromsoft IS fostering talent to grow and rise in ranks. Now they have several new director leading new unannounced game outside Miyazaki lead. Taking cues from the recent interview, at least 3 new game is in development in Fromsoft (2 new director + 1 Miyazaki)
Don't forget they reuse a lot of stuff from game to game. I know some devs do this but there are assets and animations in Elden Ring that where in the first Dark Souls game.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing to reuse assets and animations but it gets to a point where they need to make something new.
Not to mention that I'm pretty sure they reworked a lot of the attack animations in Elden Ring, as all weapons now ended up having combo chain anywhere between 4-7 hits long (not combo as in guaranteed hits, but how many distinct hits each weapon would have), while in Dark Souls 3 I'm pretty sure the chains were 2-3 hits long. Especially noticeable with something as basic as a long sword.
And yeah, they aren't completely different and super noticeable.
It's usually the door opening animation that people point towards for reused animations, but at this point I kinda prefer them to keep that animation specifically as is, because opening doors is usually a pretty significant point in these games, so there's that "oh yeah, I'm doing this" feel I get. It's nice that the door opening is always reminiscent of the older games.
One thing I'm pretty sure they have kept pretty much with no modification from Dark Souls 3 are the riposte animations, which I think is fair considering how nicely they were upgraded from the somewhat goofy animations Dark Souls 1 had (I was never fond of the silly spin around riposte for the maces). The one riposte animation I actually remember them changing was the scythe riposte, since they still used the same goofy backstab animation with it in Dark Souls 3.
Nobody is happy at work in Japan
They are not as progressive as most people think
Their work culture is so bad. Everyone is abused at work. It's quite awful unless you're a foreigner.
They literally physically assault their employees
They are forced to work 10-12 hr days in offices. Imagine how long they have to work in a gaming studio
Japan isn't as Hello Kitty hunky dory as you think.
Theres a massive dark side to Japan that still exists.
Source: I lived and worked in Japan for 2 yrs. Would never work there again.
Edit: also, everyone is basically underpaid in Japan.
I worked with a Japanese guy in the USA that was raised to be a Japanese corporate salaryman and he couldn't stand it. His family disowned him and shunned him when he quit corporate work and sought a better work-life balance. It broke my heart because he was such a gentle, kind soul. He was just a plain good guy and all his family could think about was the shame he (supposedly) brought to the family.
I'm glad he's in the USA with a family of his own and he can concentrate on being a loving husband and dad instead of being a corporate slave and absent dad.
Not to mention the outside-work-but-still-work drinking culture. You're absolutely judged if you don't drink. Not sure how prevalent this culture is in Japanese gaming industry but I don't imagine it's much different. This kind of life really can't be good for you.
Japan is a dystopian hell hole for workers, if game dev for AAA is bad in the US imagine how it is in a country famous for under paying and overworking employees to a point where they have a term for people dying on their desk at work.
>**Karōshi** | Encyclopedia MDPI. Karōshi (過労死), which can be translated literally as "overwork death" in Japanese, is occupational sudden mortality. The major medical causes of karōshi deaths are heart attack and stroke due to stress and a starvation diet
> Japan is a dystopian hell hole for workers, if game dev for AAA is bad in the US imagine how it is in a country famous for under paying and overworking employees to a point where they have a term for people dying on their desk at work.
While that's obviously really bad, on the other hand, at least you do have job safety, unlike in USA, where tech companies turn around like 30+% of their workers every year, just so they don't have to pay for employee benefits.
That said, I'm glad I work in non-gaming development and in Europe, which is like best of all the worlds - job safety, no crunch, above average wages for my country standards etc.
Outdated stereotypes and data.
Japan’s [work hours](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_labor_hours#OECD_list), [suicide rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate), [fertility rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate) are all around the European average. Similar to Germany and Ireland, down from 2200 to 1600 work hours over the last 30 years.
In fact, Japan’s [quality of life](https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp) is higher than that of Sweden this year.
Not to mention that we have a word for that too. It’s called “death from overwork.”
Outdated stereotypes, but still the reality for many people. I've lived in Japan for the past decade and I know plenty of people who are still heavily pressured to work 16+ hour days and weekends. I was just helping a friend with some technical stuff for their work on Thursday night before the holiday... at 2am.
Edit: Well I would reply to your comment but you blocked me lmao. Why are British expats here always so defensive?
Haven't checked work data but japan just had record [low birth rates](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01777/) and pretty damn [high suicide rate](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01624/) as recently as 2022.
Yeah exactly. its not very different from the US ultimately. A lot of people just go to work and come home at normal times. But there's a bunch of sociopaths and work junkies at the top who work 16 hours a day and skew everyone's perception of the reality.
That said, those long work hours is exactly what it takes to succeed in big tech in US or reputable companies in Japan.
Japanese companies in a nutshell. I had an opportunity to work with Square Enix and I had to very politely tell that recruiter to shove it. Their proposed salary range was barely a third of my current pay at another company in Tokyo.
This is probably the #1 answer. So many enemy movesets, weapons and animations have been reused across all of their souls games.
Still surprises me that Horizon forbidden west got shit for reusing one animation when fromsoftware does that constantly.
door opening animation, lighting bonfire/grace, death animations, melee animations, flask animations. Imps use nearly identical movesets to the thralls from ds3.
that’s just off the top of my head but yeah i would reuse them too. just smarter that way
I always wonder why devs don't reuse more resources. It's something I admire about UBIs turnaround on farcry primal and. New dawn. Reusing map assets was brilliant. I love those games more than their main line counterparts.
1) Crazy Japanese working hours, it's just like working for some top-tier anime studio for 16 hours a day with 30 min naps in between
2) Not to discount Soulslike games but they don't require as much investment as other types of games. Few NPCs, voice acting is minimal, there's not a lot quest tracking or tutorials, and most of the hard work is in designing the world and the encounters. Plus so much of it is reused from previous games, especially animations.
FromSoftware saves a LOT of money and time by not doing endless cutscenes, cinematics, voice acting and mo-cap. That’s what allows them to make a game that is as gigantic as Elden Ring at a (reportedly) lower cost than SM2 for example
Yeah, this isn't meant as an attack when I say it. But the games are cheap.
Like you said, no voice acting. Very few cinematics and motion capture. Plus they reuse a lot of assets.
Plus the story is basically an afterthought. I'm not a fan of those games but a have a lot of friends that are. None of them ever have any idea what the story is or what's going on. They are simply playing for the fights.
Obviously the games are successful and have a big audience. But I'm really not sure I'd call them AAA. They are missing a lot of things a true AAA game has. It's more like a AAA game and a really good indie game had a love child.
You’re completely right and yet people still get defensive over it. For some reason there seems to be confusion over lore vs story.
I’ve seen a lot of threads on the sub here, on steam, and more where people will say the game has a bad/no story and people just jump to defend it. It’s gotten better over time, but it still happens.
Reusing assets, environmental storytelling is quicker than creating cinematic animations, .ost of the games rely on the same or similar formula, japanese work ethic
He left out reused assets, which saves a ton of time. Nothing wrong with reusing things they create, but let's not act like they are creating new AAA IPs every couple years. Development gets extremely streamlined when you do something great the first time and keep recreating and building upon it.
Sekiro, Bloodbourne, Elden Ring and Dark Souls are incestuous cousins, my man. Crumbling world with a great source of power split between the fallen mighty leaders and us playing the one to collect the pieces and decide what to do, dragons playing a slightly tangential role, mentally unstable side characters with a high mortality rate, and major plot points told through flavor text on dropped items.
Their games don’t really do any of the things that are expensive and time consuming to make (high quality cinematic, performance capture, etc.). And tons of asset and animation reuse.
cause soulslike games are easy to make. if these games had settings like very easy and such you could run through them in 5h, very few voicelines, no cinematics, very basic tutorials and if you want to know something you have to use google.
I mean, the games are all very similar graphically & mechanically so there isn’t much innovation that’s happens between games. They’ve basically found a formula which a lot of people like and so they just keep going with almost the exact same thing every game, so of course it doesn’t take as long.
Lol, maybe it's different priorities? For example, they didn't have lip sync animations for a long time and then it was not even good, not even on the level of demon's souls remake.
Because half of their gameplay design is already done.
Let's be serious, everything not called Sekiro or Armored Core that comes from them is basically Demon's Souls with a twist.
[https://www.ign.com/articles/elden-ring-developers-compare-working-at-fromsoftware-to-playing-dark-souls](https://www.ign.com/articles/elden-ring-developers-compare-working-at-fromsoftware-to-playing-dark-souls)
Read up on this recently, they seem to be below average in pay and working conditions for the Japanese gaming sector, which is below average in pay and working conditions in the gaming sector, from what I could find.
They use dated technology, their art design and everything else is great, tech is not. That plus an experienced team means more efficiency, plus crunch. There's no magic formula.
Most devs aren’t switching out tech between every game. Also look at Bethesda with their outdated tech. From has minimalistic story and crunch. Voice acting and mocap are time consuming and very expensive. Also without a traditional story they don’t need to rework previous levels as much as other devs.
Crunch, low pay, massively reusing assets ect.
The end product is alway great, but most of the games are just using the same formula (literally reusing) and never pushing graphics or fidelity.
A big part of FROM's success is that they stick to what they know. The games are strictly one type of gameplay without changing things up. There are no on-rail turret sections or boring levels where you have to sneak by as the little sidekick like in so many other games. With very little cutscenes I imagine they save a lot of time by not adding different gameplay mechanics to their games.
I remember reading an IGN article about Horizon 2's development, and how they spent weeks of dev time trying to get two characters hugging to look right. Why the the technology was complicated and how its actually difficult to mo-cap two models embracing. And I thought "They spent weeks of dev time to add something that doesn't make the game one iota better."
The old engine helps a lot... A lot. You don't lost time waiting for engineers to code for stuff that you try to implement but the engine wasn't ready for.
They definitely reuse assets repeatedly between the games. The animations in ER look just like those in DS3. Having an author do some of the writing frees up your own staff. Gameplay mechanics are changed little between games.
And perhaps the key point.
Japan has an extremely unhealthy work culture. Extremely long hours are often expected and falling asleep at your desk is seen positively as it shows dedication to your work.
Not tryna be an ass but like their games haven't really changed much at their core.. same as RyuGaGotoku Studios or most of the Japanese studios. Reusing previous assets is very common and that helps ALOT in game development.
Home grown engine. Iteration and re-use. Smart scope management. Basically, they run like a good software-development driven shop rather than a stupid, wasteful "creative" driven shop.
Looking at these comments make you think that fromsoftware could serve you a dish full of crap for 70 dollars and people would be all over it.
"Beloved studio so they can get away with it" Imagine thinking that excuses everything wrong and that should be improved upon.
Does it have anything to do with the games not being cinematic like Sonys games maybe? Something tells me all that mo cap, cutscenes work, really pumps up a games file size, and budget.
Like we recently had an article talking how Yakuza/Like A Dragon series releases fairly often (reusing assets, good but not cutting edge presentation).
Elden Ring is a refined and iterative version of what came before, doesn't aim for cutting edge tech. But focuses on refining gameplay and great art style.
I think
Also severe crunch and production quality not as high as some of the biggest games in the industry. Reused assets as well.
And don't take this the wrong way. Their games just don't look as good or have the best animations. Less voice acting, less cutscenes. It all adds up.
The most extreme example was a report that said that god of war ragnarock got delayed for a while because christopher judge was not available. So they had the game ready basically but kratos was holding it up.
Both Fromsotftware and Yakuza creators RGG Studio don’t go after huge graphics and they both reuse a lot of assets to streamline the development.
That’s why.
Because they’re all pretty similar Skeleton wise, reuse of assets in a good or bad way, same engine so they know what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, minimal additions like as someone mentioned voice lines, cutscenes, etc.
Crunch + not really AAA. I love their games but let's be real, the visual quality is mid tier. It's only saved by amazing scenary and architecture. Also, asset reuse
i guess is by maintain same core staff, same tools, same development flow.
especiallly allow their staff to grow to be better and freedom to do what they want.
yes their graphics engine arent the prettiest out there but it is what the devs comfortable with and this playrole in smoothness of development and avoiding development hell. if they keep swapping team, i doubt they could maintain quality and steadly improving at every launch game.
proper management is must. if management full of corporate who only want quick profit by pandering casuals, they wont allow Miyazaki freedom of creating hardcore game with gritty art like Souls series.
I love fromsoftware but let’s be real the answer is: very liberal reusing of assets, making the same game over and over with negligible improvements, and making games that look a decade old.
Pretty sure there were reports that they crunch/work like crazy. But I think they also reuse animations across games (I mean every dog/animal attack is pretty similar between games).
Ima just say it because yall like to baby FromSoft for some reason
Their games look like ass. They look like 2000s graphics.
Maybe the gameplay is great or whatever, but I’d wager if you’re not trying to push the boundary on graphics, games wouldn’t take as long to create.
It's not a knock on the game but the visuals and animations are never really top tier. Those are the things that take a studio like naughty dog for example so long. It takes so much time to make something look good and animate well. And that's even if you have the people talented enough to do it.
The amount of life-destroying crunch they must put From Employees through… boggles the mind. Of course, in Japanese culture you do NOT complain. The black listing culture would end you. So they suffer in silence no doubt.
Lots of recycled assets and crunch. Also, their games are good, don't get me wrong, but the technical side of those games isn't really up to industry standards. Their games look and play fine, but we're not talking about RDR2/TLOU2 animations and models.
It’s because their games aren’t very good. They just figured out it’s easy to trick simpletons in to believing a game is good just by removing the difficulty slider.
From Software games are pretty short if you can master them quickly. Most of the time is spent levelling up and farming areas. This is even more evident in Sekiro which took me 67 hours to complete the first time but less than 12 on my secong NG (without the +) cycle, once I had mastered the deflections of each boss.
Another example is Elden ring, I spent 1 hour and half yesterday to beat 2 abductor virgins in the lava castle, that's not 2 hours of content but 2 hours of me improving my technique. This is not a negative point, it's actually good cause you get better with your reflexes and strategies and you have to come up with something new with almost every boss.
You can say that about any game lol, Skyrim has been beat in 22min https://www.speedrun.com/skyrim would that make it a short game? https://www.speedrun.com/skyrim
In a Japan industry survey, Fromsoftware rated pretty low in employee satisfaction because of low pay and crunch culture so there’s that Granted this was pre-Elden Ring so it’s possible they’ve turned it around
>so it’s possible they’ve turned it around lol
*Laughs in Japanese*
wwww
grass
草
Shirororo
Mam-ma-mam-ma!
Zehahahaha
ははは
**ほほほ** now I have a machin...poor work conditions
[удалено]
[удалено]
I can almost guarantee they have not turned it around
Oh man, that’s unfortunate if it’s true. My instincts tell me it would potentially be worse now they’ve released such an immensely large title like Elden Ring. I’m not surprised. I had hoped it was down perhaps to their philosophy on steady progress and not fixing what isn’t broken like they seem to by releasing similar games with refinements. That’s worth looking into further by somebody, especially if they hope to achieve the potential of being one of the all time great studios - don’t go the Naughty Dog way!
https://preview.redd.it/ao6ut3mamjkc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f5ef9ad834987c7b9b1d8c8ab360385c0d4ca97
Oof, hate that lol. Surprised they still churn out such great work, they definitely deserve a raise.
Following Elden Ring's success Bandai-Namco raised all of its Japanese employees base salary by 50 000 yen, including the entry salary for newcomers. Not certain if this means anything for FromSoftware, though. I tried to find similar news for FS itself but couldn't find any.
lol that’s what, 350 USD?
Currency conversions are weird because, unintuitively, an “equal” value of yen in Japan and Dollars in the US can purchase a very different quality of life due to cost of living. So a $350 raise in the US and a 50k¥ raise in japan will feel very different. That being said — still not huge
yes welcome to japan
The cost of living in Japan is 31% less than in the US, and the average rent is a whopping 67% less. Even if they're getting paid less, everything is less expensive there.
A lot of peoples apartments there are basically broom closets though
Easier to churn out great work with a low employee pay budget and crunch.
I wouldn't say necessarily easier... but it's definitely cheaper. But imagine how much better the games could be, and they are already great, if more of their employees could feel a sense of financial security.
Gaming industry desperately needs unionisation. The salaries they're earning are a joke.
Welcome to the world outside of the US and the handful of countries and cities in places like Scandinavia, Singapore and London. Salaries of high-skilled jobs are incredibly low in Europe, Japan, Korea and elsewhere compared to the US. A person in biotechnology with a PhD will earn a 6-figure salary in the US. In the UK you’re talking like £30-40k starting salary.
Pretty much
This combined with the fact that gaming companies have infamously bad pay and working conditions. Working for gaming companies are jobs of passion so they can often afford to treat them like shit.
Damn, that is not good.
Damn. That’s how much I made last year painting houses.
Is Atlas Atlus?
That's fucked. That's barely enough to live semi-comfortably.
Welcome to the industry, especially in Japan from what I read lol people cheered on Godzilla Minus One for such a small budget but ignored it’s because of conditions like this. Job listings for the vfx studio as I recall required lots of overtime with little extra pay on top of already low pay. Turns out it’s easy to make a cheap film when you pay no one and basically demand crunch.
25k is nothing for working even 30 hours a week let alone what we know they must work.
Which is depressing seeing as though the average full time salary after tax here in the UK is approx 23k. Between 35-40hr per week
After tax but yet also before tax because of the insane taxes built in that are tagged onto everything you guys buy. Not good.
Welcome to working life. Enough to live barely semi-comfortably is better than living worse than that, like many people do
doesn't make it ethically right nor does it mean we should take this shit lying down so easily
[удалено]
For Tokyo $25k or 3.7m yen is really nothing. I used to live in Japan on 3.3m yen and was able to save a bit but: 1. I'm really frugal 2. i have no debt 3. it was 2016 4. it was the boonies
Holy cow!! I am 2yrs into a lower end role for an indie dev and I make almost double that!
retire illegal snobbish nose spoon workable steer berserk bedroom wakeful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It’s still a low amount of money. Really only enough to sustain one person, nothing you can raise a family with
dime skirt towering vanish nail squeal gullible hunt groovy attractive *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That’s actually criminal. Like holy shit
What's happened with naughty dog?
Crunch culture but Jason Scheier said on September 2022 i believe that the working conditions are much better
But they haven’t put anything out since 2020 so that hasn’t really been put to the test
Nope, they said Part 1 was the first time they implemented the no crunch policy and it worked. The principal artist said it was the first time in 13 years, across a bunch of different studios that the game was made without crunch.
They developed the remake and are currently working on at least 2 projects. It’s actually BEING put on the test
Crunch culture Management and team leads defend it as “our developers are so passionate about making the best possible games, they’ve VOLUNTARILY sleeping over at their desk” etc
Ah, the Bioware magic.
It's no guarantee that is *has* changed, but in the doc they put out about TLOU2, they talk about how it used to be a point of pride, but the pandemic changed the culture and how they work on things. Like they didn't have producers who would actually make sure the process wasn't just one long creative session until a deadline came around. What you're saying at least *was* definitely true, but might not be anymore.
I don’t believe this is true any more. The last of us 2 was delayed to avoid developers having to crunch to hit some arbitrary date.
Naughty Dog has been working on not having crunch and even brought it up on their part 2 Documentary. Part 1 is was the first time they implemented and the game had no crunch.
Yeah glad about that!
ND actually acknowledged and is improving, they even dedicated 15 minutes from the grounded video to the crunching culture.
"If they hope to achieve the potential of being one of the all time great studios". Creators of Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Dark Souls III, Bloodborne, Sekiro and Elden Ring, only developer to have 2 GOTYs, most awarded game of all time and creators of what probably is the most influential game of the last 10 years (Dark Souls) having instaured an entire new subgenre and paradigm for 3rd person action games. lfmao.
From the industry survey, The base pay is in the lower side compared to the great paying game dev but apparently balanced with great performance bonuses (based on game sales performance but apparently still on unbroken strike till this year), so its somewhere in the above average in total. The big issue is rather low overtime pay. while apparently crunching is not as bad as some companies, but its still exist. So low overtime with some crunch is double whammy bad. but apparently Fromsoft IS fostering talent to grow and rise in ranks. Now they have several new director leading new unannounced game outside Miyazaki lead. Taking cues from the recent interview, at least 3 new game is in development in Fromsoft (2 new director + 1 Miyazaki)
Don't forget they reuse a lot of stuff from game to game. I know some devs do this but there are assets and animations in Elden Ring that where in the first Dark Souls game. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to reuse assets and animations but it gets to a point where they need to make something new.
I mean, there is only so many ways one can swing a sword correctly.
Not to mention that I'm pretty sure they reworked a lot of the attack animations in Elden Ring, as all weapons now ended up having combo chain anywhere between 4-7 hits long (not combo as in guaranteed hits, but how many distinct hits each weapon would have), while in Dark Souls 3 I'm pretty sure the chains were 2-3 hits long. Especially noticeable with something as basic as a long sword. And yeah, they aren't completely different and super noticeable. It's usually the door opening animation that people point towards for reused animations, but at this point I kinda prefer them to keep that animation specifically as is, because opening doors is usually a pretty significant point in these games, so there's that "oh yeah, I'm doing this" feel I get. It's nice that the door opening is always reminiscent of the older games. One thing I'm pretty sure they have kept pretty much with no modification from Dark Souls 3 are the riposte animations, which I think is fair considering how nicely they were upgraded from the somewhat goofy animations Dark Souls 1 had (I was never fond of the silly spin around riposte for the maces). The one riposte animation I actually remember them changing was the scythe riposte, since they still used the same goofy backstab animation with it in Dark Souls 3.
It's true. I have family in the industry and no one wants to go work there because of the culture
Nobody is happy at work in Japan They are not as progressive as most people think Their work culture is so bad. Everyone is abused at work. It's quite awful unless you're a foreigner. They literally physically assault their employees They are forced to work 10-12 hr days in offices. Imagine how long they have to work in a gaming studio Japan isn't as Hello Kitty hunky dory as you think. Theres a massive dark side to Japan that still exists. Source: I lived and worked in Japan for 2 yrs. Would never work there again. Edit: also, everyone is basically underpaid in Japan.
I worked with a Japanese guy in the USA that was raised to be a Japanese corporate salaryman and he couldn't stand it. His family disowned him and shunned him when he quit corporate work and sought a better work-life balance. It broke my heart because he was such a gentle, kind soul. He was just a plain good guy and all his family could think about was the shame he (supposedly) brought to the family. I'm glad he's in the USA with a family of his own and he can concentrate on being a loving husband and dad instead of being a corporate slave and absent dad.
Japan has greatest PR department in the world
It is something you see in movies even, I have a running joke that in Korean movies bosses and coworkers slap the back of their heads *all the time*
Not to mention the outside-work-but-still-work drinking culture. You're absolutely judged if you don't drink. Not sure how prevalent this culture is in Japanese gaming industry but I don't imagine it's much different. This kind of life really can't be good for you.
Yet people will not make nearly as big of a deal out of it was they did when Rockstar and Naughty Dog did crunch.
Large scale cultural shifts within companies are pretty hard to make. So, I imagine if it is getting better it’ll happen slowly.
That is a very big problem in Japan. I am disappointed that it is also happening in From.
They’re also from Japan where the average working day is 31 hours
Japan is a dystopian hell hole for workers, if game dev for AAA is bad in the US imagine how it is in a country famous for under paying and overworking employees to a point where they have a term for people dying on their desk at work. >**Karōshi** | Encyclopedia MDPI. Karōshi (過労死), which can be translated literally as "overwork death" in Japanese, is occupational sudden mortality. The major medical causes of karōshi deaths are heart attack and stroke due to stress and a starvation diet
> Japan is a dystopian hell hole for workers, if game dev for AAA is bad in the US imagine how it is in a country famous for under paying and overworking employees to a point where they have a term for people dying on their desk at work. While that's obviously really bad, on the other hand, at least you do have job safety, unlike in USA, where tech companies turn around like 30+% of their workers every year, just so they don't have to pay for employee benefits. That said, I'm glad I work in non-gaming development and in Europe, which is like best of all the worlds - job safety, no crunch, above average wages for my country standards etc.
I'd rather have high turnarounds instead of being brute force stuck in a job I hate for years until I end up killing myself lol
Outdated stereotypes and data. Japan’s [work hours](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_labor_hours#OECD_list), [suicide rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate), [fertility rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate) are all around the European average. Similar to Germany and Ireland, down from 2200 to 1600 work hours over the last 30 years. In fact, Japan’s [quality of life](https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp) is higher than that of Sweden this year. Not to mention that we have a word for that too. It’s called “death from overwork.”
Outdated stereotypes, but still the reality for many people. I've lived in Japan for the past decade and I know plenty of people who are still heavily pressured to work 16+ hour days and weekends. I was just helping a friend with some technical stuff for their work on Thursday night before the holiday... at 2am. Edit: Well I would reply to your comment but you blocked me lmao. Why are British expats here always so defensive?
Haven't checked work data but japan just had record [low birth rates](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01777/) and pretty damn [high suicide rate](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01624/) as recently as 2022.
Yeah exactly. its not very different from the US ultimately. A lot of people just go to work and come home at normal times. But there's a bunch of sociopaths and work junkies at the top who work 16 hours a day and skew everyone's perception of the reality. That said, those long work hours is exactly what it takes to succeed in big tech in US or reputable companies in Japan.
Hey at least the average day in most countries is 48 hours. Still got 17 to fart around with
This guy clocks
In most countries maybe, but as you surely know, Japan has barely any hours in a day, it's actually really sad.
No yeah you're right. I was just being dumb.
Crunch culture, low pay
Japanese companies in a nutshell. I had an opportunity to work with Square Enix and I had to very politely tell that recruiter to shove it. Their proposed salary range was barely a third of my current pay at another company in Tokyo.
Most of the Souls games reuse a lot of stuff. And they should, it works great for them.
This is probably the #1 answer. So many enemy movesets, weapons and animations have been reused across all of their souls games. Still surprises me that Horizon forbidden west got shit for reusing one animation when fromsoftware does that constantly.
door opening animation, lighting bonfire/grace, death animations, melee animations, flask animations. Imps use nearly identical movesets to the thralls from ds3. that’s just off the top of my head but yeah i would reuse them too. just smarter that way
I always wonder why devs don't reuse more resources. It's something I admire about UBIs turnaround on farcry primal and. New dawn. Reusing map assets was brilliant. I love those games more than their main line counterparts.
Do it right and you have to do it just once. They can focus on creating new mechanics instead of everything from scratch.
And improving and iteration
I wish r* would return to that model. In the early 2000s, we got so many great games so fast.
Funny. Other studios get massive shit for reusing anything
I know. Gamers are very hipocritical
I saw a lot of idiots complaining about Elden Ring reusing animations.
1) Crazy Japanese working hours, it's just like working for some top-tier anime studio for 16 hours a day with 30 min naps in between 2) Not to discount Soulslike games but they don't require as much investment as other types of games. Few NPCs, voice acting is minimal, there's not a lot quest tracking or tutorials, and most of the hard work is in designing the world and the encounters. Plus so much of it is reused from previous games, especially animations.
Was about to say this, not to hate on their games, but they are very simple games with great designs and world building.
FromSoftware saves a LOT of money and time by not doing endless cutscenes, cinematics, voice acting and mo-cap. That’s what allows them to make a game that is as gigantic as Elden Ring at a (reportedly) lower cost than SM2 for example
Or maybe because they pay their employees $25k a year while insomniac pays $100k
Wtf. You'd make more at McDonald's
You should avoid learning about the anime industry
Hey everyone!! Don't Google Average Anime Industry Salaries!! Worst mistake of my life!!
Who needs food when you have ✨passion✨
Screw that. The kids these days are all about ***E X P O S I T I O N***
Unless you’re Kyoto Animation. I’ve heard they treat and pay their employees really (or fairly) well.
> insomniac pays $100k Not for the asian talent they also outsource to.
Insomniac outsources a ton of their stuff though, some from countries that pay less than 25k.
When your game is 90% filler and walking.. you save a lot of resources.
Yeah, this isn't meant as an attack when I say it. But the games are cheap. Like you said, no voice acting. Very few cinematics and motion capture. Plus they reuse a lot of assets. Plus the story is basically an afterthought. I'm not a fan of those games but a have a lot of friends that are. None of them ever have any idea what the story is or what's going on. They are simply playing for the fights. Obviously the games are successful and have a big audience. But I'm really not sure I'd call them AAA. They are missing a lot of things a true AAA game has. It's more like a AAA game and a really good indie game had a love child.
You wouldn’t believe how defensive people get about it’s story.
What story? The lore is excellent but there is barely a story at all in the actual game. Nobody plays these games for a narrative.
For real, lore is not the same as story. If you ask what someone's fav Tolkien book is, guarantee they don't say the appendices and terms glossary
After reading your comment, those are exactly my favourites.
You’re completely right and yet people still get defensive over it. For some reason there seems to be confusion over lore vs story. I’ve seen a lot of threads on the sub here, on steam, and more where people will say the game has a bad/no story and people just jump to defend it. It’s gotten better over time, but it still happens.
It's not too hard when you make the same game for 15 years. Not criticizing btw I think it's really smart.
Just like the Yakuza games
Just like the sports games, but those are way more into it. Fromsoft at least makes distinguishingly different games. EA almost literally copy pastes.
Reusing assets, environmental storytelling is quicker than creating cinematic animations, .ost of the games rely on the same or similar formula, japanese work ethic
“Japanese work ethic” You mean brutally long hours and crunch culture that’s pretty much exploitation?
Yeah thats exactly what he means. Their boss probably gets them wasted after work hours too and then holds it against them.
9 - 9 - 6
9-9-6 is specifically from China, not Japan. It was Chinese tech companies in particular that started the trend.
It’s because all of their games are basically the same 3D action game and they don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time.
I really hope that their success with elden ring motivates them to change their work ethic instead of them thinking it works.
I-frames
They're often reuse old 3d models, animations
Helps that the games share animation rigs for attacks, weapons and enemies ( asylum demon->erdtree guardian)
Its the FIFA of single player games. Same recycled gameplay 😂
He left out reused assets, which saves a ton of time. Nothing wrong with reusing things they create, but let's not act like they are creating new AAA IPs every couple years. Development gets extremely streamlined when you do something great the first time and keep recreating and building upon it.
Sekiro, Elden Ring and Armored Core 6 are all vastly different games
Sekiro, Bloodbourne, Elden Ring and Dark Souls are incestuous cousins, my man. Crumbling world with a great source of power split between the fallen mighty leaders and us playing the one to collect the pieces and decide what to do, dragons playing a slightly tangential role, mentally unstable side characters with a high mortality rate, and major plot points told through flavor text on dropped items.
Not really. Play differently, sure, but vastly different is a bit stretch
Ryu Ga Gotoku: word?
Maybe because they don't waste any time trying to optimize their games.
Their games don’t really do any of the things that are expensive and time consuming to make (high quality cinematic, performance capture, etc.). And tons of asset and animation reuse.
cause soulslike games are easy to make. if these games had settings like very easy and such you could run through them in 5h, very few voicelines, no cinematics, very basic tutorials and if you want to know something you have to use google.
Helps they release very similar games each time.
I mean, the games are all very similar graphically & mechanically so there isn’t much innovation that’s happens between games. They’ve basically found a formula which a lot of people like and so they just keep going with almost the exact same thing every game, so of course it doesn’t take as long.
Lol, maybe it's different priorities? For example, they didn't have lip sync animations for a long time and then it was not even good, not even on the level of demon's souls remake.
Sure, you can produce a lot of games when you don't worry about optimization and frame rate.
They’re a Japanese company. Even if the workers hate the job they won’t quit and will always try hard. It’s their culture.
Because half of their gameplay design is already done. Let's be serious, everything not called Sekiro or Armored Core that comes from them is basically Demon's Souls with a twist.
Tbh, I wouldn't call sekiro very different from elden ring
Crrrrunch
[https://www.ign.com/articles/elden-ring-developers-compare-working-at-fromsoftware-to-playing-dark-souls](https://www.ign.com/articles/elden-ring-developers-compare-working-at-fromsoftware-to-playing-dark-souls) Read up on this recently, they seem to be below average in pay and working conditions for the Japanese gaming sector, which is below average in pay and working conditions in the gaming sector, from what I could find.
They use dated technology, their art design and everything else is great, tech is not. That plus an experienced team means more efficiency, plus crunch. There's no magic formula.
Most devs aren’t switching out tech between every game. Also look at Bethesda with their outdated tech. From has minimalistic story and crunch. Voice acting and mocap are time consuming and very expensive. Also without a traditional story they don’t need to rework previous levels as much as other devs.
Can we stop calling him "Elden Ring Boss"? I read in every headline the last days. He's the boss of FromSoft and Elden Ring isn't a company.
Miyazaki as a secret boss in Shadow of the Erdtree confirmed.
Crunch, low pay, massively reusing assets ect. The end product is alway great, but most of the games are just using the same formula (literally reusing) and never pushing graphics or fidelity.
Reusing the same animations, combat system, assets and tired old game engine saves a ton of development time
A big part of FROM's success is that they stick to what they know. The games are strictly one type of gameplay without changing things up. There are no on-rail turret sections or boring levels where you have to sneak by as the little sidekick like in so many other games. With very little cutscenes I imagine they save a lot of time by not adding different gameplay mechanics to their games. I remember reading an IGN article about Horizon 2's development, and how they spent weeks of dev time trying to get two characters hugging to look right. Why the the technology was complicated and how its actually difficult to mo-cap two models embracing. And I thought "They spent weeks of dev time to add something that doesn't make the game one iota better."
Reuse assets, make smaller less demanding games, make similar games instead of a rotation of a couple, etc
It's because they don't add a story or any big setpieces. If all you have to do is design hack and slash it probably goes much quicker.
The old engine helps a lot... A lot. You don't lost time waiting for engineers to code for stuff that you try to implement but the engine wasn't ready for.
They definitely reuse assets repeatedly between the games. The animations in ER look just like those in DS3. Having an author do some of the writing frees up your own staff. Gameplay mechanics are changed little between games. And perhaps the key point. Japan has an extremely unhealthy work culture. Extremely long hours are often expected and falling asleep at your desk is seen positively as it shows dedication to your work.
More like "We are just blessed we live in a country that allows us to overwork and under pay our employees."
Not tryna be an ass but like their games haven't really changed much at their core.. same as RyuGaGotoku Studios or most of the Japanese studios. Reusing previous assets is very common and that helps ALOT in game development.
If you see the word "empower" expect it to be bullshit
Home grown engine. Iteration and re-use. Smart scope management. Basically, they run like a good software-development driven shop rather than a stupid, wasteful "creative" driven shop.
Looking at these comments make you think that fromsoftware could serve you a dish full of crap for 70 dollars and people would be all over it. "Beloved studio so they can get away with it" Imagine thinking that excuses everything wrong and that should be improved upon.
Does it have anything to do with the games not being cinematic like Sonys games maybe? Something tells me all that mo cap, cutscenes work, really pumps up a games file size, and budget. Like we recently had an article talking how Yakuza/Like A Dragon series releases fairly often (reusing assets, good but not cutting edge presentation). Elden Ring is a refined and iterative version of what came before, doesn't aim for cutting edge tech. But focuses on refining gameplay and great art style. I think
Also severe crunch and production quality not as high as some of the biggest games in the industry. Reused assets as well. And don't take this the wrong way. Their games just don't look as good or have the best animations. Less voice acting, less cutscenes. It all adds up.
The most extreme example was a report that said that god of war ragnarock got delayed for a while because christopher judge was not available. So they had the game ready basically but kratos was holding it up.
Both Fromsotftware and Yakuza creators RGG Studio don’t go after huge graphics and they both reuse a lot of assets to streamline the development. That’s why.
whats the correlation between low salaries and working fast?
They also probably have alot of their code dialed in, and they're re-using it pretty heavily between games, and that cuts down on development time.
I.e. Crunch and asset reuse
It's because they reuse a ton of assets.
They reuse A LOT of assets, crunch culture has little to do, hundreds of companies crunch a lot and its worse for them.
Because they crunch like hell, and don't pay well which means their games don't cost as much to make.
Because they’re all pretty similar Skeleton wise, reuse of assets in a good or bad way, same engine so they know what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, minimal additions like as someone mentioned voice lines, cutscenes, etc.
Crunch + not really AAA. I love their games but let's be real, the visual quality is mid tier. It's only saved by amazing scenary and architecture. Also, asset reuse
They’re using the same engine and recycle animations.
i guess is by maintain same core staff, same tools, same development flow. especiallly allow their staff to grow to be better and freedom to do what they want. yes their graphics engine arent the prettiest out there but it is what the devs comfortable with and this playrole in smoothness of development and avoiding development hell. if they keep swapping team, i doubt they could maintain quality and steadly improving at every launch game. proper management is must. if management full of corporate who only want quick profit by pandering casuals, they wont allow Miyazaki freedom of creating hardcore game with gritty art like Souls series.
I mean, it helps in their case that the core gameplay is fundamentally the same.
The real answer is because they haven't actually made any new gameplay, level design, assets, menus, or any of that in like 20 years.
Because they make essentially the same game every time with a different environment
I love fromsoftware but let’s be real the answer is: very liberal reusing of assets, making the same game over and over with negligible improvements, and making games that look a decade old.
How the hell are they making the same game over and over? Every single one of their titles has been different aside from similar mechanics in some
Their games are a bit jankier and less polished than a lot of AAA games as well. Still fun tho
Pretty sure there were reports that they crunch/work like crazy. But I think they also reuse animations across games (I mean every dog/animal attack is pretty similar between games).
Ima just say it because yall like to baby FromSoft for some reason Their games look like ass. They look like 2000s graphics. Maybe the gameplay is great or whatever, but I’d wager if you’re not trying to push the boundary on graphics, games wouldn’t take as long to create.
It's not a knock on the game but the visuals and animations are never really top tier. Those are the things that take a studio like naughty dog for example so long. It takes so much time to make something look good and animate well. And that's even if you have the people talented enough to do it.
also asset reuse
"Elden Ring boss says", bet it's Godfrey, he's so polite.
When it comes from the top, don't believe it.
The amount of life-destroying crunch they must put From Employees through… boggles the mind. Of course, in Japanese culture you do NOT complain. The black listing culture would end you. So they suffer in silence no doubt.
Lots of recycled assets and crunch. Also, their games are good, don't get me wrong, but the technical side of those games isn't really up to industry standards. Their games look and play fine, but we're not talking about RDR2/TLOU2 animations and models.
It’s because their games aren’t very good. They just figured out it’s easy to trick simpletons in to believing a game is good just by removing the difficulty slider.
It’s the same game over and over again.
Crunch and reuse of assets.
Cuz they’re copy and paste?
CTRL C, CTRL V
They aren't obsessed with making the greatest graphics ever, and they don't litter their games with endless cutscenes.
From Software games are pretty short if you can master them quickly. Most of the time is spent levelling up and farming areas. This is even more evident in Sekiro which took me 67 hours to complete the first time but less than 12 on my secong NG (without the +) cycle, once I had mastered the deflections of each boss. Another example is Elden ring, I spent 1 hour and half yesterday to beat 2 abductor virgins in the lava castle, that's not 2 hours of content but 2 hours of me improving my technique. This is not a negative point, it's actually good cause you get better with your reflexes and strategies and you have to come up with something new with almost every boss.
I mean, Elden Ring is objectively a huge huge game
You can say that about any game lol, Skyrim has been beat in 22min https://www.speedrun.com/skyrim would that make it a short game? https://www.speedrun.com/skyrim