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Mindark Reorganizes and announces Ai - Initiative

Angela Draniie Cloud

Angela Draniie Cloud

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Angela Draniie Cloud
https://news.cision.com/mindark-pe-ab/r/mindark-reorganizes-and-announces-ai-initiative,c3776263


"
MindArk, the creator of Entropia Universe, today announces that the company will be issuing notices of termination to up to 25 employees, equivalent to 40% of the company's employees. This is a result of the company's strategic ambitions for the future, with Artificial Intelligence (AI) being a central part of it. In order to ensure that MindArk delivers on these ambitions, the company will be restructuring while also establishing a sustainable cost base for the future. The majority of the affected positions are in the fields of graphics and world-building. The exact details and the specific number of reduced positions will be determined in the upcoming period, after the optimal organizational structure has been established and a review of all departments has been conducted. This will be done in accordance with relevant regulations.

The company will also strive to reduce costs in its operations in relation to other external expenses. These changes are estimated to have a positive effect on the Board's goal of resuming dividends to shareholders.

This decision is part of MindArk's long-term vision to create a versatile virtual universe where the integration of more AI technology, such as natural language interaction, contextual image and content generation, and data analysis, is a crucial piece of the puzzle. All of this is aimed at pushing the technical boundaries and providing users with an even better metaverse experience. The focus now shifts towards the development of AI-generated virtual worlds, which will eventually reduce the barriers of entry for users and partners to own planets or areas compared to the present day.

This disclosure contains information that Mindark PE AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation (EU nr 596/2014). The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person, on 30-05-2023 10:00 CET."


Well their Q1 financial report did say the were done pre production and potentially world building stages. And they did go from something like 24 or 26 employees to 62 in the Q1 report. Mostly hired for UE5. Seems like a common thing for companies. It's a lot cheaper and easier to over hire than hire the exact amount or accidentally under hire.
 
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It's sad when AI replaces artists and not the tedious jobs. But maybe the AI will design some interesting new content, which would be nice.
 
Angela Draniie Cloud said:
Well their Q1 financial report did say the were done pre production and potentially world building stages. And they did go from something like 24 or 26 employees to 52 in the Q1 report. Mostly hired for UE5. Seems like a common thing for companies. It's a lot cheaper and easier to over hire than hire the exact amount or accidentally under hire.
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I agree that it looks more like just needed semi-temp hires for an initial push, and there's a point where they aren't needed anymore where you can return to "normal" staffing levels.

That said, they could have just come out and said something like that instead of more cryptic language that could cause concern for investors. Restructuring, etc. really makes it sound like they're running into financial problems when they lead with it how they did.
 
kingofaces said:
I agree that it looks more like just needed semi-temp hires for an initial push, and there's a point where they aren't needed anymore where you can return to "normal" staffing levels.

That said, they could have just come out and said something like that instead of more cryptic language that could cause concern for investors. Restructuring, etc. really makes it sound like they're running into financial problems when they lead with it how they did.
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I've thought about that, but I checked a few other places announcements similar to this and it's always cryptic. You want the people guessing. Share holders know what's going on.
 
Maybe they think investors will applaud the slim-down headline, without bothering to note what has been written within hours on the forum about 40% of what exactly...
I see that I've understood something poorly myself, though: the nature of the procedural generation.

Apparently UE5 is able to easily generate great landscapes and fill them, at which point a bit of extra editing comes in for settlements, mob spawns, mission triggers etc. These then become saved worlds on file.
I had been hoping it would be procedural on-the-fly generation, where huge areas do not need to be saved to file as they are generated procedurally whenever they are visited. Personally, I'd prefer that if it can be meshed with some kind of reverse fractal algorithmics for players to alter terrain and content on the fly too...

Angela Draniie Cloud said:
Release quote: "AI-generated virtual worlds, which will eventually reduce the barriers of entry for users and partners to own planets or areas compared to the present day."
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"eventually" is an extremely poor word when applied to MA's expected timelines.... :( Ah well...
 
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jetsina said:
I had been hoping it would be procedural on-the-fly generation, where huge areas do not need to be saved to file as they are generated procedurally whenever they are visited. Personally, I'd prefer that if it can be meshed with some kind of reverse fractal algorithmics for players to alter terrain and content on the fly too...
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That's the dream with an engine this easy to use. Like I've watched a few short tutorials and went to my relatives house and I was "making" some fucking insane shit in MINUTES. Terrain, planetary, location etc. Is soooo insanely easy
 
I think my dream goes further lol - I would like dynamic worlds that are still able to run fast and be updated for others on the shard. Maybe there would be limits before an area returned to its former state, but messing around in some kind of "viewfinder" approach for everybody would be insanely good, and more than really quick content creation. But I guess it's a bit off-topic, or topic moved forward to what the changes might actually mean for EU-Unreal ...
 
Well, considering we haven't seen much if at all regarding what they're doing with UE5.......
 
Both here and on discord people seem concerned with the AI developing parts of the game, i recently saw a video on a Unreal Engine update which might help some of you understand what I think this might relate to.

Unreal Engine 5.2 (YouTube video)

I'm sure all is good at MA, sure some will need to find a new job but that's how life works. A lot of them were probably hired to do some foundation work for UE5 and now is no longer needed. It's still the same old company which need to make money for itself and now it's shareholders so not sure why a lot of people are so surprised and scared about the "cryptic" talk, pretty sure it's called business but what do I know, I'm just a pleb.

Nothing to worry about here, move along!
 
Scrapping eu5 on the low low, eu about to implode with the USD, the end has come 😂 buying all 2.0 weapons 500ped each, quick
 
Would be good to get more info on the lay offs if its due to low productivity that may explain why we have not had ue5 updates as *planned*
 
Well, when not much makes sense it's hard to navigate the workings. It's hard to know what a team of UE5-enabled devs could do as platform stuff for MA that isn't actually creating content, but the ability to do so. Especially if they were not given jobs until fairly recently anyway on a project basis. I assume it was creating templates for mob spawns in UE5, inventories, that sort of thing, as MA itself often only seems capable of copy+paste of existing stuff that needs to be created by someone. Maybe also the teaching of workflows in the UE5 environment, such as how the mobs themselves are put together with limbs, muscles etc. Once taught, it's back to the original employee size... ?
 
ColonelBuckshot said:
Well, if they are in such a good position as to be able to lay off all these people, I hope they are going to show off what they achieved in UE5 shortly, judging by this it can't be far off a show able condition.
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Good luck with that. A board wipe and layoff of 25 people in the middle of an engine upgrade and game redesign is never a good thing. I'd hazard a guess that we won't even see Unreal now. Clearly the shareholders (tatiana?) didn't want to see the game go the Unreal route, and its now redirected. I'm curious what AI is out there building MMORPGs atm. I've never heard of one that comprehensive where it makes sense to fire 25 artists and developers.


Happy my investment in this game is now closer to zero than it used to be. I'll keep moving in that direction.

GGs
 
If
krogfan said:
Good luck with that. A board wipe and layoff of 25 people in the middle of an engine upgrade and game redesign is never a good thing. I'd hazard a guess that we won't even see Unreal now. Clearly the shareholders (tatiana?) didn't want to see the game go the Unreal route, and its now redirected. I'm curious what AI is out there building MMORPGs atm. I've never heard of one that comprehensive where it makes sense to fire 25 artists and developers.


Happy my investment in this game is now closer to zero than it used to be. I'll keep moving in that direction.

GGs
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That's the case, Mindark need to make a statement to us all to tell us what's going on, this would mean the unreal tokens are now essentially worth 0. They had speculative value, now if unreal is no longer happening....
 
Can someone tell me why I'm reminded of something all of a sudden...

https://www.theregister.com/2018/04/27/bofh_2018_episode_7/ (just replace "blockchain" with "ChatGPT")

But seriously, inflation has been hitting hard in Sweden and if the need to cut costs is driving these changes, then it's difficult to argue with. What they hope to achieve with AI instead, I am also curious to hear. The developer notes are underused.
 
Unreal Engine had another update recently. Many improvements which also included being able to make huge landscapes and diversity very fast and easy.
I don't doubt we will get the engine update. You guys can google Why Unreal Engine 5.2 is a big deal. It should link you to a YouTube video.
 
krogfan said:
Good luck with that. A board wipe and layoff of 25 people in the middle of an engine upgrade and game redesign is never a good thing. I'd hazard a guess that we won't even see Unreal now. Clearly the shareholders (tatiana?) didn't want to see the game go the Unreal route, and its now redirected. I'm curious what AI is out there building MMORPGs atm. I've never heard of one that comprehensive where it makes sense to fire 25 artists and developers.


Happy my investment in this game is now closer to zero than it used to be. I'll keep moving in that direction.

GGs
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That's not the case at all.

There are a growing number of tools out there that use AI to generate 3D assets. You can literally do it from text based input or feed it a starting point like Eudoria and ask it to create more assets based on what you've provided. Soon you won't even need programmers let alone artists to build a game.

This is just the beginning. They literally have game worlds out there right now that are entirely populated by AIs interacting with each other like the SIMs. You won't even need other players to have an MMO, it'll be populated by AI, hence my Dead Entropia Theory comment above.

The entire reason Entropia Universe exists is to seperate YOU from your PED. It was built by and for MindArk, not the participants. This press release and lay offs are about the share price tanking and has little to do with creating content or providing the participants a platform to do business or "make money". Funny enough the reach of this press release is likely to do little for the share price because it's near impossible to trade their shares on that obscure exchange.
 
Better initiate more withdrawals if you want them to arrive to you in the next year or two.

I've got several pending. One more will be coming soon as auctions end.
 
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