Life Is Strange: Double Exposure Dev Hit with Second Round of Layoffs

Somehow missed the whole Nazi imagery and white supremacy stuff during development, along with the blatant homophobia from Square Enix London. What an insane story.

@nessisonett yeah I had to go read all that after seeing this that's completely wild

I'm sure the CEO is really upset as his paycheck is completely unaffected.

Its kinda hard to hit expectation when their games are targeted to a very small percentage of gamers who would play these games especially with rising cost

@nessisonett It's extra wild and disappointing as both True Colors and especially Double Exposure are very diverse and queer-friendly.

@somnambulance I agree with you completely. The game is emotionally on point, some of the best graphics in the series, they did an excellent job portraying an older Max.
The only way I can really understand the low scores is that, as you said, someone reviewed it who just isn’t a narrative led game, centred on relationships and trauma.
Hopefully this won’t be the death knell of the studio.

The big Corpos preach diversity and equality while treating their employees like subhumans.

@MeanBeanEgg

People absolutely shouldn’t feel guilted into crunching long term. Working 80 hours a week only increases productivity for a fortnight or so. After that, you get more out of the healthy people working 40 hours a week than you do out of the exhausted people working 80. If you decline to crunch, you will soon find yourself picking up their slack, not the other way around. After a few months, you’ll be begging them to stop breaking everything and go to bed!

The only purpose of crunching is for your idiot boss to create a false impression to their idiot boss that everything that can be done is being done. Underneath all the churn it’s an admission of managerial incompetence. The first thing any successful manager would do on entering a failing environment is eliminate crunch. It’s a failure spiral. And it destroys people’s health.

Studios don’t fail despite crunching, they fail because they’re crunching. It’s a warning sign that nobody knows what they’re doing.

Sorry to hear this, I played Double Exposure at the weekend and thought it was excellent, not quite as ‘cosy’ as True Colors but really engrossing (I’d say you do need to have played the first game though). Also, the ending hints at an intriguing potential direction for the future of the series.

@Loamy Until everyone starts blaming extremists on both sides this conflict will keep raging.

@ATaco Exactly. Those ideas are just marketing and a month ago people decided that this marketing strategy is over.

Well the ign article was a great laugh. Some guy was accused of “lingering”.

this has probably got more to do with them finishing two games in the last year and not needing the increased head count. Telltales the Expanse last year then this year life is strange.
they must have been working on both simultaneously that would require a larger head count than usual and

also I dont think either game sold that well

@McDosy You life in a dreamworld you should not feel like that but if you don't they won't renew your contract. Everyone knows it doesn't work but the suits upstairs life in another reality look at all the rich people in the world. A nice example is Musk no idea why people praise that guy so much.

@ChimpMasta I’m not being sly, but what do you mean niche political beliefs and pushing conspiracy theories related to numbers? Not sure what Double Exposure had that the original or other games didn’t.

The irony of this series that forces beliefs down people's throats being tied to Nazism is too rich. Outside of that these games have been terrrrrrible from the beginning and I feel bad for the individuals losing their jobs but if we never see another one of these games the ecosystem will be better for it

@Flaming_Kaiser

Musk is the idiot boss of idiot bosses. If you’re forced into crunching, you’re heading for redundancy and illness. Forget about renewing your contract. Leave before they go bust!

If you ever have the choice, refuse. Refusing to crunch is the biggest open goal there is, career wise. It’s like being the only person who’s sober. In no way fun, but actually pretty easy to get ahead.

@McDosy He believes everyone is the same he lives work he lives to be in the spotlight. I just want to do my best at my job and I work to live. Also if i work to much I'll just be less concentrated and more prone to mistakes.

@ChimpMasta I thought that was it, but it’s a bizarre argument dude.

From the first game throughout they’ve all been super queer-friendly, the romance between Chloe & Max is pretty much cannon in the first game.

And I see you’re talking about the Nazi symbols - they noticed the ‘88’ first, true, but they also noticed the hagal rune, and clear signs of memes often used by the far right. It sounds like a 4Chan-affiliate messing around tbh, but weird they felt the need to undermine the game’s themes.

I do get not wanting things rammed down your throat, and things are more front and centre these days. But it’s always been there, people were just under more threat by being more open before, I see it as a plus we have media representing a large number of people out there myself.

@ChimpMasta as normal a friendship as jumping through parallel dimensions affords.

But I think it’s pretty obviously intended, the first game has one romance option, the future games and comics lean into it, it’s clear Chloe had feelings beyond friendship for Rachel.

I would ask you to reframe how you’re seeing it though - queer people have by necessity hidden their feelings, in person, in media etc. for generations out of very justified fear - someone who is queer, or has queer friends, is going to better recognise those cloaking methods. These days, incredibly, people have a bit more freedom to be open - so they don’t need to hide it so much.

That’s what you’ve been seeing. Life is Strange isn’t quite strikingly queer. It’s a bit sad you’d never explore that path in the game, it adds a lot more weight to the game’s narrative. Otherwise, what, they’d sacrifice a town to flat-share for a bit and share the odd pint?

Also, just have to say, it’s not a case of ‘belief’, it’s there whether you like it or not - it’s a case of tolerance. much like that Kenyan official trying to banish gay lions, denying it doesn’t make it not exist.

@ChimpMasta I agree 100% about Veilguard, it’s great it wanted to raise subjects not often handled in video games, but it was poorly written and soulless in it all. It felt more a corporate exercise than anything genuine.

I don’t think the same can be said of Life is Strange. Perhaps we should agree it’s possible they’re all just very close friends.

I just feel a friendship that intense, the way each one idolises the other, and the intensity of the feelings - is more typically found in more than friends.