E3 2018: Joseph Gordon Levitt Explains How HitRECord Will Contribute to Beyond Good & Evil 2

"We obviously couldn't finish BG&E2, so maybe you guys should take a stab at it."

Please compensate your contributors well!

Been following HitRecord and JGL for a while, they seem like a great company. It's a very wierd thing for a massive company to go that route, but I like the (marketed) idea behind the decision. I have never heared about anything fishy when it comes to paying for work done.

This entire thing has soured the game for me. I know AAA is full of garbage like this (That doesn't happen to be paraded as a positive out on a fucking E3 stage), but having it paraded around like this feels gross.

It's time for the games industry to unionize.

I'm a huge fan off JGL and Hitrecord, they have done some really awesome stuff in the past. And the contributors and creators does get paid for their work.

I for one really thinks that there are no ulterior motives here, Ubisoft wanted to give the fans a chance to contribute and shape BGE2 to become what the players want it to be and Hitrecord is probably the best channel for this.

Too bad that didn't come across too well on stage (a Tweet from Joseph that apologizes for this).

This actually seems like a really awesome way to get tons of unique art in the world as well as make the game really special to the fans who get their work featured. I was kind of shocked anyone was expecting any sort of serious compensation. This is clearly not a job offer or anything, just a cool little way to contribute to something you love. Fundamentally not any different from the Giantbomb E3 banner contest.

The relatively small amount of money allocated makes this whole thing look more like a co-marketing deal than Ubi relying on spec work to get the game out the door....hopefully. It is troubling for the future game development if this is the direction other big developers are heading in the next 5 years though.

Im really bummed out that people immediatly cry wolf the minute this was announced. Is it the american political climate that makes everyone first reaction be 100% hostile instead of you know, a nuanced approach based on wait and see before passing judgement? How about seeing this as fans of the game can actually get their work/love shown in the game (and perhaps get paid a bit as a thank you lets keep things somewhat fair). Having the chance to be involved in something like this seems like it would be an awesome experience for some people.

Not everything has to be evil corporations fucking over the poor defenseless working class/freelancers. Think about how much free and totally voluntary art gets devoted to Giant Bomb(a lot). Now imagine Giant bomb was making an game and you had the chance to contribute some graffiti on the side of a building or a fake movie poster. The forums would be full with it. Its basically that and the E3 banner challenge. Not everything is about $$$. You would think the people most outraged by this are the ones who see things that way.

I personally have no history with beyond good & evil or play a lot of ubisoft games.

@hkr said:

That's barely the salary of 1 artist, let alone the full compensation. And they are looking to farm out a lot more than 1 artist's worth with this. Also, keep in mind they only pay for what actually gets into the released product. So, that concept art? Those 20 variations you drew? No compensation. This is pure exploitation masqueraded as "freedom".

This whole thing just makes Beyond Good and Evil 2 one of the most confusing games I've ever seen, especially when you add in the ties to the first game's characters that make no sense in something that's apparently a prequel.

That tweet is meaningless. We have no idea what "-ALL-" is actually equal to so it's ridiculous to assume whether or not that sum of money is reasonable. Comparing it to what a hired professional makes over the course of a whole year is totally misleading when we're talking about single pieces of art from each contributor.

People are acting like they're trying to outsource some big chunk of development to fans when there's been no actual indication of that. I would be very surprised if this resulted in anything more than dozens of contributions to the game.

To me, this sounds like HitRecord content will just show up in the game world as flavor, like background music playing in a bar/diner, an in-world commercial, or at most, a minor NPC. We shouldn't overreact and think this content will somehow complete the game, thereby forcing the player to have to suffer through some sort of user-generated content. I think it's just world-building stuff that would go unnoticed if we weren't looking for it when we finally play.

This is a pretty unique thing so you gotta give Ubi that. And I heard the HitRecord site got hammered right after the announcement. Co-Marketing works. Hey, if you get picked, you get paid for it and then you could have your own Giant Bomb wiki page.

That tweet seems to completely misunderstand how hitrecord actually does their whole collaboration thing. And comparing the dollar amount to AAA salary is one of the most ridiculous takes I've heard about this.

I'm glad they clarified this. What they described on stage sounded shady as all hell and HitRecord isn't well enough known for people to just know how their business model works. Trying to get commissions to pay out is already often a pain in the ass for artists, to have Ubisoft on stage seemingly saying "Hey you can make our game assets for free right?" was definitely very worrying.

Thankfully it's not that but damn I bet whoever decided to shorten that script in that way got chewed out afterwards.

@hkr: seems like $50k is just a tiny fraction of this budget to get fans hyped and submitting stuff. from watchign the trailers etc, it doesnt seem like they've cut staff so they could rely on fans to build the game for them.

I'm in favor if a unon in any industry - but i dont think that this partnership with HitRecord is costing anyone a job...and i dont think there are people working on HitRecord projects full time as their primary source of income - that would also be a bad decision.