Phoenix Labs (creators of Dauntless and Fae Farm) just laid off most of their dev team

[shadow@lemmy.ca]

Many. Unfortunately I also can't talk about them, yet.

[simple@lemm.ee]

That sucks, I hope you're doing alright after the layoffs. Hopefully things improve in this industry...

[wirelesswire@lemmy.zip]

I tried it at one point before trying any Monster Hunter games, and I found it really boring. I was legitimately getting drowsy when fighting the second monster and found it much easier to just chug a potion, rather than try to dodge its attacks. Monster Hunter World, on the other hand, was exhilarating from the first large monster you hunt. So... did Dauntless get better as you progressed?

[ampersandrew@lemmy.world]

It just got into the core fight, upgrade, fight loop way faster, without any of the tedious mechanics that I didn't like from Monster Hunter, that I find boring. I played right around its launch on Epic, so who's to say if we even played the same game, with the way these games can change over time?

[sosodev@lemmy.world]

Meh. You can blame crypto bros but the original owners sold out. Once a studio has been swallowed up by a conglomerate it is only a matter of time before it turns to shit.

[shadow@lemmy.ca]

I wish I could get more into this, but yes there were some major missteps during the covid/post-covid "stocks are crazy high, money is free!" period. After that there just wasn't really a way to recover.

Unfortunately it's pretty hard to avoid VC money, the tech industry runs on it.

[electric@lemmy.world]

If you worked on Dauntless, just want to say I appreciate your part! Only played it for a while at release because the grind turned me off but it's been sad seeing news pop up of how it has been going downhill. Was such a fun game.

Sucks that good game devs get laid off because the leaders are asleep at the wheel unless it involves monetization.

[electric@lemmy.world]

I think the issue is more that VC's prioritize draining money out of what they acquire instead of continuing with what works for longer term gains.

[infynis@midwest.social]

I played it back when it was free before Monster Hunter Worlds came out, and it was great then!

[sosodev@lemmy.world]

It’s hard but not impossible. You’ll make less money but have much more stability.

After multiple layoffs I started freelancing. The autonomy and multiple streams of income has been great for my mental health.

[hyphlosion@lemm.ee]

Sorry you were downvoted for having an opinion.

[marcomachtkuchen@feddit.org]

That's the point where I link the stop killing games initiative which tackles that exact issue.

https://www.stopkillinggames.com/