Fire Shuts GTA 6 Developer Rockstar North, Following Report of Explosion
ign.comWhat a ridiculously sensationalistic headline. It was a minor issue that occurred out of hours and was resolved less than 30 minutes into the working day. Nobody was in any way injured or affected, and it was business as usual.
GTA6 is most likely the most anticipated cultural product of all times. Unfortunately, sensationalization makes perfect sense from news websites perspective.
Ah, the good old "explode the boiler to lower delivery expectations" trick. Befitting the studio of GTA!
A delay would inconvenience the whole games industry, not just Rockstar; every other developer has to time their release and development around GTA 6.
I think most companies at this point learned that no launch date is set in stone. Sure, if you're doing AAA games, you might not want to launch right next to GTA, but for most others? Matters way less than people think.
Tell that to the indie developers that launched games alongside the surprise release of Silksong.
> Tell that to the indie developers that launched games alongside the surprise release of Silksong.
Huh? Is your argument that it would be bad for Silksong to surprise release next to GTA? Or that indie developers should have planned around the surprise release of Silksong? I really don't understand what argument you're trying to make here.
It sounded like you were saying other games launching at the same time yours does matters less than people think.
My argument was that other releases can and do impact sales.
The argument is that Silksong will completely absorb any potential market for you new indie game had during that period. People will be too busy playing another game, leading to poor numbers during launch. It's hard to recover from that.
Right, but what does that have to do with "every other developer has to time their release and development around GTA 6", especially considering that Silksongs release was a surprise, so what exactly could you even plan for?
My original point that there is so many things at play, GTA 6 launch date, which may move, together with other things outside of your control, that "planning your release and development around GTA 6" doesn't make sense, unless you're a big company doing a AAA release.
This implies Silksong was the stronger title, either in gameplay, marketing; or both. If the indie game was better, people would be playing that over Silksong. Isn't this just market forces applied to games?
That’s the point. If possible, you don’t want to release your game at the same time as a much stronger title.
I'm saying that's defeatist to your game. Have faith yours is the stronger title
You should also be mindful that there are marketing budgets you can’t outcompete.
Even if your game is better, you’ll probably make much more money if you don’t time it to launch at the same time as the new GTA
The point is that no indie dev was able to plan around the surprise release of Silksong, precisely because it was a surprise.
Ah, so then just an agreement with "Matters way less than people think" in the end?
No.
A lot of devs delayed their launches:
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/silksong-release-date-has-...
Those that didn't or couldn't think it hurt them pretty badly:
https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/hell-is-us-boss-slams-silkson...
In general I think you are probably right. But there are definitely exceptions and this is one of them.
O wow, capitalism in action.
This is not going to help the memes... Glad no one was injured!
2027 I guess it is then :(
I don't think this is likely to impact development much, they can rent office space elsewhere if needed.
This is the same company that claims the exact hours of crunch is a "company secret" that would expose their development process and features of the game, so I don't think it's far off they'd use something like this to push another delay.
Slightly unrelated (maybe?), here is a moderately nuanced summary video of the latest happenings in the ongoing court cases in "Rockstar vs Union": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnuipPQDd_w
TLDR of the case: Rockstar fired some employees for a slew of different reasons (some leaked/confidential messages), (most) fired employees were members of the union and the court case is about if 1) they were fired for the right reasons and 2) they were fired in the correct way and right now 3) should they still get paid while the court case figures out the answers to #1 and #2
I'm saying "maybe?" unrelated as it does sound like something a disgruntled employee might do, but could also be something completely else. I feel like it might be related though, hence the linking.
Could be a disgruntled employee; it could be Rockstar destroying their own records; it could be a leaky gas pipe.
Did the game become real life? Wild.
Someone got too tired of the pay to win nonsense and decided to play in real life ? xD
The very first sentence of the article:
> Fire services attended the offices of Grand Theft Auto 6 developer Rockstar North this morning and secured "structural damage" following a reported boiler explosion.
Well... then I guess the local boilermakers' union will have to come around with Scabby the Rat inflatables.
It seems like it would be easier for some people to rig a boiler to explode than trying to get their hands on dynamite.
Why go through the hassle of trying to source a bomb when the victim provides you one on location already.
FYI, I'm not saying that's what happened, just that your dismissal shouldn't be immediate.
Also, the best way to sabotage something, is to make it look like an accident, that way they aren't looking for you.
That’s an absurd stance to take in the absence of any supporting evidence.
A boiler exploding is not surprising.
> That’s an absurd stance
That's why I didn't take that stance.
Hanlon's razor
Are you familiar with the concept of a joke ? I can send you some peer reviewed papers to read about humour if you'd like.
Yes, I am familiar with jokes, but I don't see one here.
Jokes are not permitted on HN, please don't do it again.
HN is intented for mildly pleasant experiences only.
That's not actually true, though, is it? Or is there some other HN legal document besides https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ?
Joking about an office building exploding is contextually not a funny joke
Even worse, they didn't make a joke about the game "being on Steam".
As long as no one died or got seriously injured, I see no problem in cracking jokes.
It didn't land, but bad jokes aren't a crime
Don’t tell TSA that.