Yea man, as if codemasters put a gun at their head 'Work for us or die!'

All they probably did is 'We have openings for so and so, and here and here, spread the word!'

The employees themselves went to codemasters and accepted the offer. What is so wrong about that ? Capitalism at it's best people!

Wow, you sure know how to turn this thing around eh?

Games are creative content and guess what? You can't say that we are spoilt for choice when it comes to that. Only a consumerist and non-gamer would ever make such a lame comment like that.

Why not say the same for the local music industry? I mean there are plenty of musicians elsewhere... Why bother? If RIM died, nobody will give a shit right?

Besides, if you don't give a shit about what happens to these local companies, why are you posting such hateful comments about them? Did a local game developing house kill your dog or something? I mean, if you do as you say, you wouldn't even bother with posting this (and that earlier thread).

All lame companies need to be criticized, not because they're local game developers. *LOL*

You seem to be very defensive over this issue. You must probably be running your own game development studio or have friends who do.

But really, if RIM died, I probably don't care, because I have choices of other songs and music to choose from.

Whoa, you should check your sarcasm detector bman. I think it's malfunctioning.

I was merely being flippant. I'm not criticizing game coders for parlaying their talents into hard cash. They can do whatever they want. As long as they can show their spoon-bending coding skills by making amazing games, I'm happy to keep on buying and playing them. So it's all good.

Nice change of stance eh? From "OMG, MNC's are t3h G0d! local game devs are teh stupids" to "I criticize lame companies"

And since when were you the voice of majority? RIM dying and you not caring != RIM dying and the rest of Malaysia not caring. Just because you're narrow minded doesn't mean everyone else is.

Yes, since I am on the defence in the issue, I MUST be somehow involved in the local game development industry. So, by that logic, you're probably involved with a local MNC game developing company since you're so aggressively promoting them? Then again, you seem to know squat about gaming, which rules that out, so I guess your logic fails. Unless of course you're the same dude in the article who said the PS3 has "Real Time Rendering" or some emo ex-employee went ranting to you one day... while drunk... then maybe yes.

Again let me just say (In case anyone missed the point), Codemasters setting up shop in Malaysia isn't really helping the game development industry in Malaysia. Sure, they're providing more jobs, but that's it. As such, from a gamer's point of view, I really couldn't give a rat's ass about them.

Feel free to prove me wrong on that. I want to be proven wrong really. (I win either way )

Err, it's working fine, I know you're not being serious. I was agreeing with you actually.

ummm still not a good answer... who's getting political?

Question was why not a malaysian game? Nobody will give a shit? Just like no one cared for the Saladin project?

Just to bring things into perspective - the whole of south east asian region represents less than 1% of overseas sales of large game publishers, which means, there is a lot of opportunities for local games, if not here, elsewhere.

Give our local guys the benefit of the doubt, someone gave crytek the benefit of the doubt - and now crysis. just brothers in eastern europe who wanted to make games.

Its okay to be cynical sometimes, but if you're always looking through those tainted glasses - someday when you take them off, you realize the glasses were not tainted after all....

This post has been edited by mistaman: Sep 17 2006, 12:10 AM

Examples of abuses in public funds have already exhausted our hopes. It's not we're not giving you chances.

It is not up to us. You want chances, you make your own chances.

We don't decide if you get the funds or not, or if you succeed or fail. We're just not large enough as a market to sustain your products. You want to make money from local market ? Sure go ahead, but you got piracy to worry about. Don't blame us, because your government buddies aren't even interested in cleaning out the pirates because they probably have interests/investments in these areas as well. So if you fail, is it because we never give you a chance? Or you government people don't bother to make chances for yourselves and the people you invested by at least cleaning up piracy ?

Your market is overseas. You want chances, you get those people to give your products a chance.

Malaysians have been conned for too much, too many years.

Everyone's who's lived through the policies in this country will be cynical unless you prefer to live in fantasy land.

You guys already have our tax money to start doing Saladin, games etc whatsoever.

Whether you succeed or not, it's not up to us.

It's up to yourself, whether you truly want to finish/ship the products or just abscond with the funds.

For me, I am tired of all that's happening in this country, and whether I give you a chance or not, it does not matter, since I am not your target market anyway.

So, don't ask us for chances, you guys, MDEC, game developers, 3D content/animation companies, have been given many, many, many chances using our tax money.

What have you achieved so far compared to other countries, especially compared to Singapore ?


Sure, assuming, we all support you morally, ok GO AHEAD, do it. Show something to the world.

But what good will us cheering you on, if you keep screwing it up ?


It's not right for you to ask for chances from us, because we can't do anything about that. We cannot decide your success or failure. Only you can.

Many of you local game developers, 3d animation companies, etc etc, can't even make use of the chances you received and many of you absconded with the money.



You can keep singing until the cows come home but what's the point if you people are always screwing up ?

How many chances do you think you deserve until you exhaust it ?

Chances always given to the same bunch of people, same group of f*ck ups.

What do you want from us ? Sympathy ? Sure I give you a benefit of a doubt now, what can YOU achieve ?

Look at yourselves first before accusing us of not giving you a benefit of a doubt or chances. You're not even giving yourselves chances, and you come to ask that from us. You screw up, steal the money, then go bankrupt.. all from our tax money.

Why come to us ? Ask yourselves first, if you're properly making use of the chances you received so many times from somewhere with the help of our tax funds.

We pay taxes, and for sure you will continue to get money from our taxes because of your connections. But if you keep repeating your corrupt ways and keep failing, what do you want from us ? Have we not given you chances by paying our taxes so you can play with the money or run away with it ?

Go lah, go, go do what you want. As long as you people continue your incorrigible ways, you'll never make it. No point coming and begging us for 'chances' or benefits of a doubt again.

Go and beg Pak Lah for more funds until you succeed. We have other things to worry about like putting food on the table while living costs are sky rocketing.


This post has been edited by bman: Sep 17 2006, 02:24 AM

Interesting post by bman... At the risk of sounding dense, the real reason is finally out.

Hey man, if that was what you were getting at, you could've, you know... just said so.

I haven't lost faith in local gaming devs... Well, I'm not referring to the ones which are government subsidized but the private ones (And no, Codemasters Malaysia doesn't count). Then again, I'll probably need to find one first

It is really not up to us you know. These guys have been very lucky to keep getting money all the time from tax payers to start their various projects.

And of course, they will continue to get the money no matter how many times they screw up, and nobody will be prosecuted for absconding/stealing the money.

They're not even giving themselves chances. They really should look at themselves.

I can support them 100 percent every time but what's the point if they're incorrigible and don't change their ways ? Might as well save the time/optimism for myself instead of being disappointed every time.

This post has been edited by bman: Sep 17 2006, 02:32 AM

Just a little fact, unless you're in the US, where the entrepreneurial spirit is strong and funds are in private institutions or angels, almost everywhere else in the world - everything is driven by government initiatives.

Korean game industry is wholely a government stance to make games part of their culture and part of pushing their culture to the overseas market. Singapore has taken their stance - buying into lucasfilms and incentivising alot of foreign companies to set soil in singapore. They too have their share of issues.

There will be losers and there will be winners. Creating the right environment is key - but its very much experimental. Screwing up is part of business, but bribery/stealing government funds for personal gain - that's wrong I agree.

If there is a chance a malaysian game does come out, support it, make constructive criticism on it. Make sure the devs make it better. The more products we have on the market - the harder it drives the developers to create quality.

Give you a good idea of this - is the competition between proton and perodua. It drives quality in both these companies - but we know who's the better one right. Airasia and MAS. Competition.....

heh - our only problem is the ISP - only one guy is offering ADSL..... and they can do whatever they want......

Local gaming industry no hope wan lar. Where got money then go where lar. That one most important.

Malaysia apa pun tak boleh wan lar, forget it lar.

The funniest thing i heard from a fella in the local creative content industry:

"It is our culture to work from 9am morning till 11pm at night, while the starting salary is suppose to be <Rm1500. Some foreign company coming here offering 50% more salary is spoiling the culture"

well actually he said something like that, not the exact thing.

THAT was the lamest thing I have ever heard. Other people let their people work from 9am till 6pm and pay them more for it. Whereelse our local are paying less while the working time is more. The stupid thing is that they are blaming the foreign company.

so what if they poach all your talents away. they got the money and benefit for their stuff. What can you do about it, just sit there wait die lor

peace

This post has been edited by hanraphael: Sep 17 2006, 10:47 AM

Just like the aviation industry, people in the tech industry really are in a free market. There isn't much in the way of trade barriers to stop the big boys coming in and grabbing all the talent.

But to whine about a company who gives their employee better wages AND working hours is just pathetic. Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

Whatever happened to "garage coders"? M'sia seems to have skipped a step and gone straight into the game studio phase. I think game developers and 3d artists should just go for the big money, and make their own games on the side. That way, they get to earn a decent living, and make the games they really want.

Someone mentioned something about the MMU game design degree. Well, let me ask you this: Do you really think this degree is being offered because someone out there cares about the local gaming industry, or because someone thought that they could make a quick buck off the leigons of cyber cafe zombies leaving highschool?

Hear Hear !

Why should you be bummed that it was created by poached talent? Poached or not, it's still the same people who are making it, right?

Talent poaching is not only happening in the games industry, but in the local shared services industry as well. MNCs with deep pockets just come here and wipe off other companies... it's not really new.

Sure, it's bad news for the owner of these local setups, but if our local guys (the employees) get to learn more and have a better environment where they can nourish their skills, isn't it better in the long run?

If they can learn from the big players efficient and effective ways to make better games, then it will definitely benefit the games industry overall -- as compared to bootstrapping in a small games company where almost everyone have no clue whether what they're doing is the right or wrong way.

About developing games... Seriously, if a game is good, what does it matter whether it's made locally or what? So, if a game is made locally then should we be more impressed like "wow, this is made in Malaysia wor" when we won't be all that impressed if it was made overseas. Or any product for that matter. Sure, we think we're giving encouragement like applauding a child when he first learns how to walk, but sometimes giving too much praise can create spoilt brats, no? Which brings me to the next point...

IMHO, the "Malaysia Boleh" attitude is heading in the wrong path -- it shouldn't be that we're making games, cars or whatever just for the sake of showing that "Malaysia Boleh" eg. those people who do all sorts of stupid stuff (eg. wasting resources on producing the longest sandwich, most dyed-eggs, and so forth) that doesn't benefit anyone other than themselves to get into the Malaysia Book of Records.
We should be creating games for feasible reasons like the concept is really good, there's meaning to it and that it makes money, not just to show that our local boys can do it,or to merely stamp it with the made-in-Malaysia mark.

No point spending millions to prove that you can produce games/animation/cars using your own hands -- just so you can say you did it with your own hands.

what's so wrong about shared services setup? they bring in the jobs, especially for fresh grads. right now especially with the unemployment prob with fresh grads. if they dun invest in m'sia, and bring in the jobs, who's going to provide the jobs?

and H@H@...just curios, how exactly is codemasters setting up shop in m'sia bad? if they went to india, china or philipines, would that have been better? true, they might not have poached ppl, but then they're offering exposure to something which otherwise might be either impossible or v difficult to experience. and how long can we protect our local market? jaguh kampung doesn't cut it now.

but the good thing is that the ppl from codemastesr said that they were v suprised with the talent pool from m'sia. even the boys back in UK were suprised that our local ppl could produce work which were of standard to them. plus i'm sure the local team that went to UK had a good time working in the codemasters office in UK.

imho, m'sia boleh is good, as long as we can compete on a regional or even global level. how long can u protect a industry? our proton is a shining example. protected to a point that everything is wrong.

Erm, did I ever say it was bad? I just said that it wasn't doing anything for OUR game development industry since its mostly for foreign game development "labour" work.

PS. It is pretty easy to get into game development... Someone mentioned basement coding? That's how a lot of the industry greats started, so I wouldn't say we need someone like Codemasters to give us "exposure". Believe it or not, the Internet is a nice place to get info.

This post has been edited by H@H@: Sep 19 2006, 02:47 PM

Exposure may not just necessarily be knowledge/technical wise.


It could be people management. Exposure to how they manage the company, treat the staff, run it etc... very valuable insights that can make you stand out from the other cina companies. Staff retention, etc... those kind of knowledge.

And ONLY companies like Codemasters can give this environment? Codemasters doesn't seem to be hiring game development specific personnel, so the ppl who could work there, could probably work in much better companies in different business lines.

Anyway, that was just a counterpoint to that fella's point that Codemasters is THE way to get exposure. Fair enough, you can't get the "work environment" feel if you're a basement programmer, but that could work as great credentials in game development as well, if not better.