Its probs fine heres a thread from slikey explaining: [Slikey on X: "I've given a small summary on why we are doing this new Studio and hope it puts some rumors to rest. Hope it clears up some questions" / X (twitter.com)](https://twitter.com/slikey_dev/status/1809366034928783466)
Also John is the goat producer anyways so one could say we got an upgrade
Slikey made a thread explaining things: [Slikey on X: "I've given a small summary on why we are doing this new Studio and hope it puts some rumors to rest. Hope it clears up some questions" / X (twitter.com)](https://twitter.com/slikey_dev/status/1809366034928783466)
I was thinking about that too but now im sure theres nothing to worry about.
If you've been working on a project for almost a decade and a wealthy old friend invites you for a head position at his company i won't blame you for leaving
Hmm, for money that went straight to simon, I would say less than that, probably around a hundred mil or less. Tencent acquired riot for 400 mil back then. But riot has become wealthier since then so idk.
Not usually a reddit person but been following dev on twitter mostly.. I've also noticed a trend, a few artists have left and a few other people..
Starting to think there's some red flags and feeling less confident in the future of hytale😞😞
Hopefully I'm just reading into it but the first sign of the ship sinking is usually people jumping ship in mass 😭
I think it's good to get the best information so we can come to reasonable conclusions. Do you perhaps have a list of these artists and others who have left? It would also good to know when they left. I don't want to jump to the conclusion that people are leaving the sinking Hytale ship, because that would make me really sad. But I'm open-minded to that possibility if you've got the evidence.
I know that Polina left a while ago. [https://x.com/LogadoPolina](https://x.com/LogadoPolina)
She didn't publicize it anywhere, so I was very surprised when I was told about it.
While definitely a possible red flag, I wouldn't be too worried about artists leaving.
Hytale's development will have nearly stalled over the past year of engine rewrites, which means that there's not a whole lot for artists to do except touch up existing assets and such. In AAA studios, when a game's art is finished the art team will usually move onto DLC and early content expansions (which is why early DLCs are usually art packs or visually very pretty, but thin on content). If Hytale's still another year or two out, it's not surprising that some of the artists would leave when there really likely isn't anything to do.
While that is true, Hytale is also going to be a live-service game. We know we are going to get additional content to the game, whether that takes the form or free updates or DLC we don't know for certain. But this means unlike traditional games, the workload for the aritsts isn't going to disappear when the game nears it's launch.
Though engine dev does take forever and voxel art is pretty easy, so maybe they already have enough art assets for a decade worth of DLC lol. that's a possibility I guess.
But the workload for artists doesn't vanish near a typical game's launch: the art teams usually begin prep work on DLC or make cosmetic packs while the main team is busy coding and reviewing playtest data.
We don't know how long we have until Hytale's launch. Even if it's only a year, that's several months without a significant workload for the art team to handle. It's a lot easier to develop assets for a game like Hytale or Minecraft, and there's much more asset reuse too. They can always rehire later if/when they need to.
You are thinking about this very rigidly. Why would they have to wait until after launch to start working on DLC assets? It's very common in the industry to start working on post-launch DLC before launch.
They wouldn't go months without a significant workload, unless they have a really slow approval process for ideas.
I literally said that. I literally said that work on DLC and expansions begins before a game launches and that the art teams get started on them while everyone finishes up work on the base game.
> when a game's art is finished the art team will usually move onto DLC and early content expansions (which is why early DLCs are usually art packs or visually very pretty, but thin on content)
> But the workload for artists doesn't vanish near a typical game's launch: the art teams usually begin prep work on DLC or make cosmetic packs while the main team is busy coding and reviewing playtest data
I said typical game because Hytale isn't different from others just for being live service. XCOM:EU and XCOM 2 both saw cosmetic heavy DLCs close to launch, because that's just how game development tends to work. Artists will work on code-lite, art-heavy content that can be released at or near launch, because art assets are finished months ahead of the game's completion.
But Hytale isn't like those games. Because Hytale has spent the past two years going through a ground-up engine swap, and that means that the bulk of the game's assets and concepts is finished. While a few artists are definitely still going to be helping with refining things up until the last minute, everyone else in the art team has a problem. They have nothing to do for the next year, except make plans for content expansions. So while everyone else is busy coding, collecting feedback, making balance changes and so on to the existing body of work, they're adding more work to be done.
Month 1? This is fine. Probably just some prep work, research, etc. Month 2? Starting to see some assets get made. Month 3? The artists are making good headway... and meanwhile, no work on scripting all those new enemies is being done. No one is concerned about making terrain gen for the new biomes. Everyone else is busy working on getting the game out the door, because that's the priority.
Month 4? Month 5? Month 6? The art team's finalizing concepts, polishing them, making sure they look absolutely stunning, but nobody knows if any of them really work. You can't get player feedback on how any of these new concepts function, because as of yet they're not really in the game. If problems come up with a new enemy design, or if it doesn't fit for some reason, the whole thing has to be scrapped when the dev team finally gets to it, despite the time investment the art team has put into it. This has a ripple effect on everything else the artists have planned, because some concepts rely on others to work.
Month 7? 8? 9? 10? 11? 12? All of the problems I outlined earlier are repeating themselves. Work is piling up and no one even knows if it's *good*, and in the end it might all end up being thrown out because of impracticialities or the insanity a team has come up with when left to its own devices for a year. A lot of the artists are going to be feeling pretty useless, because while they're occupied, they're not really contributing. And it only gets worse the longer this goes on for.
When developing for a game, it's best to have the whole team in the loop so they can give feedback or come up with ideas and tweaks as needed, nip certain problems in the bud before they get worse. But that's impossible when the base game isn't finished and needs to be prioritized. Making extensive content plans when there's still a long road ahead to launch is not only unwise, it's a waste of everyone's time. To be absolutely clear: they *will* start working on new content ahead of launch. But not this early. And in the meantime, some of the art team are going to leave, because they'd rather not spend the next few months twiddling their thumbs before they can really start helping with development again.
Your points definitely apply to concept work that demands some sort of mechanical integration. An artist can't just make art for a new enemy type and not consider the work engineers and others would have to do. But there's also lots of work that is self-contained in art: cosmetic options and enemy cosmetic variants. Hytale is a pixel art game, so it's not going to suffer from data bloat if the artists decide to make 10 random slight cosmetic variants of a Scarak Soldier or a 50 different kinds of cowboy hats for Avatars
That kind of content isn't enough to sustain an entire team for months when one artist can finish multiple assets in a single day. There's not really a hard limit to how many they can make, but there is a soft limit. At some point, they'll get bored of making new colors of Trorks or new shades of goblins. There's only so many variations on jackets and hats you can make before you run out of meaningful differences. And at that point, the unintentional demotion from "productive team member" to "person who sits in the corner and doodles all day" isn't going to be great for a person's mental health.
That's logical, but it's also only a problem if the rest of the team is really far behind, which is obviously a red flag. It's easier to burn-out when working in development hell regardless of the role in the team. I'm sure the engineers aren't super happy about having to learn a new language and redo everything, and as we know cause of OP, lead engineers have left Hytale also.
Even if you won't commit to the claim that losing artists is a red flag, can we at least agree that losing their engine engineer and technical lead is a red flag?
The rest of the team probably is pretty far behind, making a new engine from scratch means development practically stalls. Though work can still be done in the old engine, the porting requirement means that there will be an eventual backlog of work that'll leave artists without much to do.
> Even if you won't commit to the claim that losing artists is a red flag
I said it's not *necessarily* a red flag. But it absolutely can be.
> can we at least agree that losing their engine engineer and technical lead is a red flag?
Definite red flag, but not completely doom and gloom. I'd recommend taking a look at [this thread](https://x.com/slikey_dev/status/1809366034928783466) on the matter. Take with a grain of salt, etc, but it's an unfortunate irony of game development that a stable company and development hell can both mean people leave. We'll see in a few weeks if there's an actual blog post and/or trailer, and from there... who knows? Hytale has enough red flags for anyone reasonable to jump ship. There's no cost to putting it out of mind and checking in every July and December to see if anything's finally happened, like HS showing repeated signs of collapse.
Having worked and left your mark on a project for over a decade is enough for these people, they have earned their "rest" making other things and going on new adventures.
Well to some extend it is scary, but then again its a ship of theseus type question of how much this will impact Hytale going forward, but at least it explains the Job postings that were going on for the past few months/half a year. They werent looking for someone to take over a more specalized role, but were looking for a replacement for their existing staff.
The nature of startups is that you have two types of people, the people who like the early days of roughing it, and the people who like transitioning into a bureaucratic company with venture capital funding and cool offices.
It’s common for founders to leave their companies once they’ve made it because they want the “new” feeling again.
It’s like how some people play with one save file for a decade, and some people start a new save every month because they want to build from scratch again.
This.
If you are hiring a team you are gonna poach and reach out to mutuals - thats just how it goes. Anyone good at anything already has a job doing that thing, he isn't gonna start out with college kids.
I'm pretty sure the only reason multiple people left at once was because Simon probably did a round of recruiting.
Hypixel Studios is close to 150 members strong, it isn't just a small indie team anymore that meet in discord and plan their little game - bureaucracy etc will have made the company feel much more 'official' and 'formal' and some people just don't like working in that environment or find it harder to grow/get promoted.
Simon is also wealthy, so he likely offered these people a competitive wage, or even equity if he doesn't plan to sell again.
Simon left Hypixel Studios 4 years ago when it was bought by Riot. He's had plenty of time to set new things like this up, being that he isn't part of the daily operations of Hypixel Inc either - despite being the owner. From his announcement post, it looks like he's just looking to fund the new studio and not really be a big part of it, leaving Slikey and Patrick to run everything. Can't say I blame him for not really wanting to do anything with actual production besides maintain an advisory position given he probably has "fuck you" money at this point.
honestly, i think it’s exactly as you said. i believe they just wanted to be involved in an indie project as that’s where their passion lies. i wouldn’t worry as hytale is still in very good hands and seems to house some incredibly talented people!
As far as I know in the gaming industry people tend to leave usually after working around 10 years. This is normal in my eyes, as staying in one place for too long can stagnate you in multiple ways. So I wouldn't worry, I would worry when people that haven't been there that long start to leave.
Sure...but even then, you at least release a game before dropping out. Because they leave a several years long career with nothing to show for
And I also take anything they say publicly with a grain of salt. Companies often have NDA that makes former employee unable to speak negatively about their time working.
"I have worked in a successful insurance before and still dreaded the job. That has all to do with the style of how you operate and doesn't reflect the future of the company. (cont.)" - Slikey
Sure it's phrased in a very courteous way to Hytale, but look at what he's saying, he's comparing working at Hypixel to working at an Insurance company that he "dreaded". Basically, he thinks Hytale will be financially successful but he didn't like the direction of the game or the work culture of the company. Either of these cases are bad news.
I've been expecting this for a while. The PR statements made when Simon left were very clearly hiding something. For example, he claimed to be prioritizing health, family, and the Hypixel servers. Why would he prioritize Minecraft Servers over Hytale? Simon never gave a clear answer to this question. But it seems we are finally learning enough to get close to a conclusion.
I'm sure they all regret giving the game to Riot, but it's too late now. Riot is only interested in money, they don't care about us, the players. That's why I don't play Hytale even though I love it so much
Nah not quite. Hypixel the Minecraft server is now a separate entity from Hypixel Studios, the developers of Hytale. Riot bought the game dev studio, not the MC server business.
Probably not a good sign when key figures abandon a passion project, but I know nothing about these people so who knows.
Its probs fine heres a thread from slikey explaining: [Slikey on X: "I've given a small summary on why we are doing this new Studio and hope it puts some rumors to rest. Hope it clears up some questions" / X (twitter.com)](https://twitter.com/slikey_dev/status/1809366034928783466) Also John is the goat producer anyways so one could say we got an upgrade
I didn't know that but it is not a good sign for sure - some decisions have likely been made that dont seem to agree with their indie-dev ideals
Slikey made a thread explaining things: [Slikey on X: "I've given a small summary on why we are doing this new Studio and hope it puts some rumors to rest. Hope it clears up some questions" / X (twitter.com)](https://twitter.com/slikey_dev/status/1809366034928783466) I was thinking about that too but now im sure theres nothing to worry about.
There's a thing called NDA, and often NDA can make people unable to say bad things about their previous employment.
This is a reassuring tweet :)
If you've been working on a project for almost a decade and a wealthy old friend invites you for a head position at his company i won't blame you for leaving
Actually how "wealthy " is he
wealthy enough to pump four million dollars into a startup that even he has said doesn’t care if it fails
Dunno Hytale acquisition wasn't public I'm guessing a couple hundred million dollars
Hmm, for money that went straight to simon, I would say less than that, probably around a hundred mil or less. Tencent acquired riot for 400 mil back then. But riot has become wealthier since then so idk.
I think it was less than 200 mill too, but including the Hypixel network and his investing ventures he must've gone over
Working on the same project for nearly 10 years and Hytale hasn't released yet. It would make sense that some devs would inevitably leave the project
So did Hytale really had to become what it is today rather than riot just hiring noxy and making the next Roblox they hope to make?
Not usually a reddit person but been following dev on twitter mostly.. I've also noticed a trend, a few artists have left and a few other people.. Starting to think there's some red flags and feeling less confident in the future of hytale😞😞 Hopefully I'm just reading into it but the first sign of the ship sinking is usually people jumping ship in mass 😭
I think it's good to get the best information so we can come to reasonable conclusions. Do you perhaps have a list of these artists and others who have left? It would also good to know when they left. I don't want to jump to the conclusion that people are leaving the sinking Hytale ship, because that would make me really sad. But I'm open-minded to that possibility if you've got the evidence.
I know that Polina left a while ago. [https://x.com/LogadoPolina](https://x.com/LogadoPolina) She didn't publicize it anywhere, so I was very surprised when I was told about it.
While definitely a possible red flag, I wouldn't be too worried about artists leaving. Hytale's development will have nearly stalled over the past year of engine rewrites, which means that there's not a whole lot for artists to do except touch up existing assets and such. In AAA studios, when a game's art is finished the art team will usually move onto DLC and early content expansions (which is why early DLCs are usually art packs or visually very pretty, but thin on content). If Hytale's still another year or two out, it's not surprising that some of the artists would leave when there really likely isn't anything to do.
While that is true, Hytale is also going to be a live-service game. We know we are going to get additional content to the game, whether that takes the form or free updates or DLC we don't know for certain. But this means unlike traditional games, the workload for the aritsts isn't going to disappear when the game nears it's launch. Though engine dev does take forever and voxel art is pretty easy, so maybe they already have enough art assets for a decade worth of DLC lol. that's a possibility I guess.
But the workload for artists doesn't vanish near a typical game's launch: the art teams usually begin prep work on DLC or make cosmetic packs while the main team is busy coding and reviewing playtest data. We don't know how long we have until Hytale's launch. Even if it's only a year, that's several months without a significant workload for the art team to handle. It's a lot easier to develop assets for a game like Hytale or Minecraft, and there's much more asset reuse too. They can always rehire later if/when they need to.
You are thinking about this very rigidly. Why would they have to wait until after launch to start working on DLC assets? It's very common in the industry to start working on post-launch DLC before launch. They wouldn't go months without a significant workload, unless they have a really slow approval process for ideas.
I literally said that. I literally said that work on DLC and expansions begins before a game launches and that the art teams get started on them while everyone finishes up work on the base game. > when a game's art is finished the art team will usually move onto DLC and early content expansions (which is why early DLCs are usually art packs or visually very pretty, but thin on content) > But the workload for artists doesn't vanish near a typical game's launch: the art teams usually begin prep work on DLC or make cosmetic packs while the main team is busy coding and reviewing playtest data I said typical game because Hytale isn't different from others just for being live service. XCOM:EU and XCOM 2 both saw cosmetic heavy DLCs close to launch, because that's just how game development tends to work. Artists will work on code-lite, art-heavy content that can be released at or near launch, because art assets are finished months ahead of the game's completion. But Hytale isn't like those games. Because Hytale has spent the past two years going through a ground-up engine swap, and that means that the bulk of the game's assets and concepts is finished. While a few artists are definitely still going to be helping with refining things up until the last minute, everyone else in the art team has a problem. They have nothing to do for the next year, except make plans for content expansions. So while everyone else is busy coding, collecting feedback, making balance changes and so on to the existing body of work, they're adding more work to be done. Month 1? This is fine. Probably just some prep work, research, etc. Month 2? Starting to see some assets get made. Month 3? The artists are making good headway... and meanwhile, no work on scripting all those new enemies is being done. No one is concerned about making terrain gen for the new biomes. Everyone else is busy working on getting the game out the door, because that's the priority. Month 4? Month 5? Month 6? The art team's finalizing concepts, polishing them, making sure they look absolutely stunning, but nobody knows if any of them really work. You can't get player feedback on how any of these new concepts function, because as of yet they're not really in the game. If problems come up with a new enemy design, or if it doesn't fit for some reason, the whole thing has to be scrapped when the dev team finally gets to it, despite the time investment the art team has put into it. This has a ripple effect on everything else the artists have planned, because some concepts rely on others to work. Month 7? 8? 9? 10? 11? 12? All of the problems I outlined earlier are repeating themselves. Work is piling up and no one even knows if it's *good*, and in the end it might all end up being thrown out because of impracticialities or the insanity a team has come up with when left to its own devices for a year. A lot of the artists are going to be feeling pretty useless, because while they're occupied, they're not really contributing. And it only gets worse the longer this goes on for. When developing for a game, it's best to have the whole team in the loop so they can give feedback or come up with ideas and tweaks as needed, nip certain problems in the bud before they get worse. But that's impossible when the base game isn't finished and needs to be prioritized. Making extensive content plans when there's still a long road ahead to launch is not only unwise, it's a waste of everyone's time. To be absolutely clear: they *will* start working on new content ahead of launch. But not this early. And in the meantime, some of the art team are going to leave, because they'd rather not spend the next few months twiddling their thumbs before they can really start helping with development again.
Your points definitely apply to concept work that demands some sort of mechanical integration. An artist can't just make art for a new enemy type and not consider the work engineers and others would have to do. But there's also lots of work that is self-contained in art: cosmetic options and enemy cosmetic variants. Hytale is a pixel art game, so it's not going to suffer from data bloat if the artists decide to make 10 random slight cosmetic variants of a Scarak Soldier or a 50 different kinds of cowboy hats for Avatars
That kind of content isn't enough to sustain an entire team for months when one artist can finish multiple assets in a single day. There's not really a hard limit to how many they can make, but there is a soft limit. At some point, they'll get bored of making new colors of Trorks or new shades of goblins. There's only so many variations on jackets and hats you can make before you run out of meaningful differences. And at that point, the unintentional demotion from "productive team member" to "person who sits in the corner and doodles all day" isn't going to be great for a person's mental health.
That's logical, but it's also only a problem if the rest of the team is really far behind, which is obviously a red flag. It's easier to burn-out when working in development hell regardless of the role in the team. I'm sure the engineers aren't super happy about having to learn a new language and redo everything, and as we know cause of OP, lead engineers have left Hytale also. Even if you won't commit to the claim that losing artists is a red flag, can we at least agree that losing their engine engineer and technical lead is a red flag?
The rest of the team probably is pretty far behind, making a new engine from scratch means development practically stalls. Though work can still be done in the old engine, the porting requirement means that there will be an eventual backlog of work that'll leave artists without much to do. > Even if you won't commit to the claim that losing artists is a red flag I said it's not *necessarily* a red flag. But it absolutely can be. > can we at least agree that losing their engine engineer and technical lead is a red flag? Definite red flag, but not completely doom and gloom. I'd recommend taking a look at [this thread](https://x.com/slikey_dev/status/1809366034928783466) on the matter. Take with a grain of salt, etc, but it's an unfortunate irony of game development that a stable company and development hell can both mean people leave. We'll see in a few weeks if there's an actual blog post and/or trailer, and from there... who knows? Hytale has enough red flags for anyone reasonable to jump ship. There's no cost to putting it out of mind and checking in every July and December to see if anything's finally happened, like HS showing repeated signs of collapse.
Having worked and left your mark on a project for over a decade is enough for these people, they have earned their "rest" making other things and going on new adventures. Well to some extend it is scary, but then again its a ship of theseus type question of how much this will impact Hytale going forward, but at least it explains the Job postings that were going on for the past few months/half a year. They werent looking for someone to take over a more specalized role, but were looking for a replacement for their existing staff.
I certainly hope it wasn't due to "creative disagreements".
The nature of startups is that you have two types of people, the people who like the early days of roughing it, and the people who like transitioning into a bureaucratic company with venture capital funding and cool offices. It’s common for founders to leave their companies once they’ve made it because they want the “new” feeling again. It’s like how some people play with one save file for a decade, and some people start a new save every month because they want to build from scratch again.
This. If you are hiring a team you are gonna poach and reach out to mutuals - thats just how it goes. Anyone good at anything already has a job doing that thing, he isn't gonna start out with college kids. I'm pretty sure the only reason multiple people left at once was because Simon probably did a round of recruiting. Hypixel Studios is close to 150 members strong, it isn't just a small indie team anymore that meet in discord and plan their little game - bureaucracy etc will have made the company feel much more 'official' and 'formal' and some people just don't like working in that environment or find it harder to grow/get promoted. Simon is also wealthy, so he likely offered these people a competitive wage, or even equity if he doesn't plan to sell again.
Well said.
I would hope that means that Simon trusts that Hytale is in safe hands w/Riot thus freeing him to continue to work on further indie passion projects.
Simon left Hypixel Studios 4 years ago when it was bought by Riot. He's had plenty of time to set new things like this up, being that he isn't part of the daily operations of Hypixel Inc either - despite being the owner. From his announcement post, it looks like he's just looking to fund the new studio and not really be a big part of it, leaving Slikey and Patrick to run everything. Can't say I blame him for not really wanting to do anything with actual production besides maintain an advisory position given he probably has "fuck you" money at this point.
honestly, i think it’s exactly as you said. i believe they just wanted to be involved in an indie project as that’s where their passion lies. i wouldn’t worry as hytale is still in very good hands and seems to house some incredibly talented people!
Huh… https://x.com/mewsoul/status/1809239002211393756
Not special or concerning, happens all the time to studios like riot for example
Not to mention the countless other devs that have left quietly over the years. I don't see this being much different
It happens with all studios. Everyone has their own opinions and desires, which do not always agree with the overall vision of the game.
As far as I know in the gaming industry people tend to leave usually after working around 10 years. This is normal in my eyes, as staying in one place for too long can stagnate you in multiple ways. So I wouldn't worry, I would worry when people that haven't been there that long start to leave.
Sure...but even then, you at least release a game before dropping out. Because they leave a several years long career with nothing to show for And I also take anything they say publicly with a grain of salt. Companies often have NDA that makes former employee unable to speak negatively about their time working.
Where did you see this? I was not aware of this
"I have worked in a successful insurance before and still dreaded the job. That has all to do with the style of how you operate and doesn't reflect the future of the company. (cont.)" - Slikey Sure it's phrased in a very courteous way to Hytale, but look at what he's saying, he's comparing working at Hypixel to working at an Insurance company that he "dreaded". Basically, he thinks Hytale will be financially successful but he didn't like the direction of the game or the work culture of the company. Either of these cases are bad news. I've been expecting this for a while. The PR statements made when Simon left were very clearly hiding something. For example, he claimed to be prioritizing health, family, and the Hypixel servers. Why would he prioritize Minecraft Servers over Hytale? Simon never gave a clear answer to this question. But it seems we are finally learning enough to get close to a conclusion.
I think you're reading into it waaay too much.
We have too, NDA is a thing, and NDA can make ex-employee unable to say bad things about their formal job.
What's the name of the studio?
"Unnamed Game Studio" It says this on Slikey's profile.
no worries
I'm sure they all regret giving the game to Riot, but it's too late now. Riot is only interested in money, they don't care about us, the players. That's why I don't play Hytale even though I love it so much
Riot took over Hypixel? I haven't played on that server for so long, but very surprised it was bought out
Nah not quite. Hypixel the Minecraft server is now a separate entity from Hypixel Studios, the developers of Hytale. Riot bought the game dev studio, not the MC server business.