Andrew Siañez-De La O
@mexicancryptid.bsky.social
Writer-Designer @ ZeniMax Online Studios | Award-winning Stage and Audio Dramatist | Fighting every day to put dinosaurs in Elder Scrolls Accursed opinions are my own. They/He, Mex-American 🇲🇽
So much about Heart’s Week, both the quests and developing the holiday as a whole, was about celebrating all the ways you can love. Nghi Vo’s “The City in Glass,” is going to seem like a weird pull for such a cozy quest line, but trust me. It’s deeply romantic in some really breathtaking ways.
Wait, here are some stealie screenshots I had tucked away! I'm fairly certain these were part of my very first batch.
Andrew Siañez-De La O@mexicancryptid.bsky.social · 6d agoTrying to compile everything I wrote on ESO (to the best of my abilities because no way am I tracking down all my antiquities/stealies). Here are the numbers for only the things already released!
Trying to compile everything I wrote on ESO (to the best of my abilities because no way am I tracking down all my antiquities/stealies). Here are the numbers for only the things already released!
It's easy after mass layoffs to forget the remaining devs have to keep going. The work continues with a gutted team haunted by absence and a silent threat that they might be next
The Elder Scrolls Online@elderscrollsonline.com · 6d agoA message from ESO Game Director Nick G. Read the community letter about upcoming roadmap adjustments, Season updates, and our commitment to the future of #ESO. beth.games/4fwmjKI
This was, is, and always will be a brilliantly shit illustration of how stupidly self defeating business people can be. Forgoing the universal positive of a staff self-training on their own time, because of the vague fear that one in a hundred might make some money.
Chris Kerr@kerrblimey.bsky.social · last wk.NEW: I spoke with multiple video game developers and a U.S. employment lawyer to learn more about restrictive side clauses that often prevent employees at major companies from pursuing hobbyist work or personal projects. In an industry renowned for creativity, why are we stifling it?
I had planned to start a little ESO book club list for quests that I wrote. Essentially, "if you liked x quest, read y." So, as I suddenly have a lot of time on my hands to catch up on my tbr, I'm starting a thread I'll slowly add recs to! 📚🧵
Looking back on some fun stuff I wrote. Really loved how this Meet the Character turned out. www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/p...
No devs, no games. We are the ones that make the games, and we will fight for every developer hit by these layoffs.
My WoW guild leads gifting me game time so I can keep raiding with them after being laid off?? I love my online friends???
Happy to have @supercrip1994.bsky.social on the site today, investigating how cuts and layoffs have affected the multi-faceted Xbox accessibility work so many players rely on.
Aftermath@aftermath.site · 2w agoLayoffs leave the future of Xbox's award-winning accessibility efforts in doubt aftermath.site/xbox-layoffs-a...
I got asked about AI in games again! I think we underestimate how, while AI use is more rampant in the East than the West, our protections against it here are dramatically worse.
![From the Gamesradar article: "Necrosoft Games creative director Brandon Sheffield also highlights a cultural divide. "I think we are witnessing an attempted assassination on the very concept of creative work, especially in the West," he says. "While I'm anti AI use everywhere, at least in China and Japan people aren't getting fired with the intention to replace them with AI as that's legally difficult. There it's being used to supplement the work. I've seen Chinese companies express amazement at how Western studios are firing folks in order to have 'fewer devs do more' with AI. Why fire all your good people?"
Sheffield says Necrosoft will never use gen AI. "I feel sick about it frankly," he adds, and he would love to see the tech "be treated like a pariah." In his view, "once you let it infect your studio, [it] creatively bankrupts that studio."
"We've also seen that companies outside of games have had to hire back their engineers because AI couldn't cut it – or they're finding that all their tokens are getting spent by execs on 'convert this PDF to a powerpoint' which is cheaper to just have an intern do! So it may be slightly faster, and a lot worse, but it's also more expensive? Neat ... We're dismantling the entire industry in the interest of short-term shareholder gains and it's just a terrible plan.""](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qpbuxrel3f3njvjw5rakf532/bafkreidb5l652wbuiw2l7xib3zy2c57q55m2mwhvnhdvhe7z73ca2wqupe)
Austin Wood@woodwould.bsky.social · 2w agoHe's only gone and written 2,500 more words about how game devs feel about generative AI. Latest piece quotes around two dozen different people with an indie background. When asked how they feel about gen AI, not one, but two devs responded, "Fuck that shit." www.gamesradar.com/games/it-cre...
Bethesda Games Studios’ Montreal workers are being treated especially poorly by XBOX and we won’t stand for it. Here are the details. If this upsets you let Microsoft know: feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/ide...
microsoft is in full damage control mode following last week's layoffs. its main strategy so far? namedrop sequels to popular series at every turn. but despite what execs like asha sharma might want you to think, those series were made by people, and now they'll never be the same
Aftermath@aftermath.site · 3w agoFallout didn't make itself aftermath.site/fallout-5-beth...
"What matters the most is that the games are good" - as long as we have OD, Fallout 5, who cares, right? Everything's fine!
Kotaku@kotaku.com · 3w agoThis feels gross. https://kotaku.com/this-feels-gross-2000717133
Extremely lore correct very official impeccably sourced tier ranking of which Daedric princes would and wouldn't support a union (thank you @doomfunk.bsky.social and the braintrust)
Game workers and allies are taking action at #SaveOurDevs rallies! Earlier this month, Microsoft reported that they would be laying off thousands of workers across the company – impacting hundreds of union jobs. An injury to one video game worker is an injury to all.
First Skyrim, now Fallout 4, @elianora.bsky.social continues to support us with her fantastic creations. Thank you yet again! This week's rallies are going to be historic and we couldn't do it without fans like these! 💛💙
💀Legendary Imposter Elianora ★★★★@elianora.bsky.social · 3w agoAlmost done with the Fallout 4 mod in support of @bethesdaunion.bsky.social and @videogameworkers.bsky.social <3 Expect release tomorrow morning! :) VOD: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKRG...
One of the things that, as lead writer, I had to bang into the head of senior leadership sometimes was that writers were not interchangeable even within a project. One writer knew a certain companion inside and out. When we lost that writer, a new writer coming in took twice as long to do the work.
Hayes Madsen@solfleet.bsky.social · 3w agoHey, so, I was so angry today that, for once, I blogged it instead of posting about it. Games media, especially mainstream games media, cannot keep abdicating responsibility in how it talks about these things an-evening-at-the-inn.ghost.io/video-game-s...
an issue with how we talk about the games *industry* is that i think we have normalized talking about studios like interchangeable labor pools instead of groups of artists making creative work
Got tagged into a thread about how the community can support laid off devs, so I thought I'd put together a quick infographic. I made this company agnostic, since, well, games industry has been doing this a lot :( More Elder Scrolls specific notes in thread below.
The bosses are stealing our game industry, and we aim to take it back! We’re calling game workers, allies, and fans alike to join emergency rallies on WEDNESDAY, JULY 15th! Check this thread for times and locations as they’re established: 🧵
Hey folks, my time at ESO has come to an end. I have no idea what this means for the game, but as of right now I have been impacted by these layoffs.
Aftermath@aftermath.site · last mo.Xbox will lay off 3200 workers and cut four studios loose aftermath.site/xbox-layoffs-j...
Unfortunately, HR made our office manager take this down almost immediately. They said because it's in a common area, it had to be removed. We've used common areas for many things as a team, including fan works, but HR seems to believe that a Celebration of Service is inappropriate.
OneBGS - Bethesda Game Studios Union@bethesdaunion.bsky.social · 4w agoThose of us in Rockville were inspired by the Dallas team's vigil for those let go Monday and made our own Celebration of Service. We set it up this morning in the common area of the first floor at 9am today.
Among the layoffs was character artist Christiane Meister — a 27-year veteran of Bethesda and (as far as I can tell) one of the longest tenured women in games, period. She worked on Argonians + Khajiit in TES3, horses in TES4 and TES5, Fallout creatures, and more. (cont'd)
“I’ve worked in roofing, construction, insulation, house building, glass factories... group homes for disabled and violent adults, gas stations, food service, customer service... Out of every industry I’ve worked in, I have never struggled financially or mentally as hard as I have working here.”
Aftermath@aftermath.site · 4w agoMicrosoft layoffs hit Bethesda, Obsidian, and id Software hard as workers brace for more aftermath.site/microsoft-xbox...
Cheers, Microsoft. One day we’ll be free from this rampant corporate greed and we’ll be able to create without fear of losing our jobs to the whims of these freaks. I’m proud of all of you that worked on eso, though of course there’s one writer in particular I couldn’t be more proud of 💜 #esofam
Where to start? After 14+ amazing years of doing truly epic work on the beloved Elder Scrolls franchise (Elder Scrolls Online in specific), today I was among the way-too-large number of employees let go for strategic business reasons. Not sure what's next, but I suppose I'll think of something.
