Why wiuld any companies trust them at this point…bail, let unity die and set a precedent to other engines to not fuck with the companies that make the products.
I just wish collectively humanity could do the same for these multi billionaire companies who will kill you to make 10 cents profit.
I still think its a terrible idea to start a new project in unity, but for developers who are too far into a project to reasonably switch without spending a lot of time or money (like Ultrakill or Silksong), this is good as it means they can finish their games without having to worry about a passive income loss which could put them out of business.
A shame, but the writing has been on the wall for a long time. Volition was never quite the same after the THQ bankruptcy, and that was still several years before Embracer took over.
Sad, because I was a fan of them and bought all their games from Saint's Row 1 all the way to Gat out of Hell (although not in chronological order) and got Agents of Mayhem for free somewhere, but think they've made some bad moves lately.
I think it all started going downhill from Agents of Mayhem, and them screwing up with the reboot of Saint's Row was probably the nail in the coffin. I wish they'd just made Saint's Row 5 instead, with wacky time travel shenanigans and a more polished set of superpowers.
At the point where they decided to "reboot" to something old school and grittier (TOO old school, imo) they really didn't get what their fanbase wanted, and what new players who'd only heard of and experienced Saint's Row 4 would get excited about.
They could've probably taken Saint's Row up to 6 entries if they'd just iterated on the formula from 4 and possibly Gat out of Hell (I wouldn't know, I got distracted and didn't play it after I bought it, ironically). Similar to how United Front Games (the developer of Sleeping Dogs) could've probably stayed in business if they'd just made Sleeping Dogs 2 instead of that horrible "free to play" multiplayer asset flip of some of the least interesting elements of Sleeping Dogs 1.
I’ve never really understood the hate for Agents of Mayhem. It really captures “playable action movie” perfectly. I’d say my biggest complaint is that it is very poorly balanced such that most characters are unusable at the highest difficulties.
That’s what happened to Sleeping Dogs? Lame. I loved that game!
I agree with Saints Row. I didn’t think new younger audiences would take to a restart of the formula, or that old fans would want to start from scratch so to speak. Meanwhile ramping up from 4 would sate the old fans by somehow getting even more bonkers, and younger gamers would have this insane shit show of a sandbox even if they aren’t familiar with the brand (and would probably boost sales of the old ones too.)
Yep, it's been a trend all year. My studio got canned back at the end of January. Publisher called us into a studio-wide meeting scheduled during lunch with 1 hour of notice, only to say "The game you spent 6 years on is canceled and all 150 of you are fired. The media will know in 30 minutes, don't say anything until then if you want to keep a severance package." (I have since landed on my feet elsewhere.)
These studios are owned by big publishers and generally work for years at a loss. With the costs to borrow increasing, we're seeing cuts on long-term investments that might not make their money back (like movies and games).
Volition was owned by Embracer, which is now struggling with funding. So anything that isn't a sure bet is effectively canned - and in turn you see these studios shut down left and right, plus big layoffs from studios that are still open.
There’s your problem. Hiring an entire team for 6+ years and then cancelling the project. That’s hundreds of thousands, if not millions, down the drain.
The current AA / AAA gamedev industry isn’t sustainable
Baldur's Gate took 6 years to make. Starfield has been in development since 2015 - that's 8 years. As gamers demand more, games have grown in scope. The ones that stayed behind have gotten punished.
If a AAA game doesn't have at least 8 hours of story and realistic graphics in the modern era, it gets panned by reviewers. People's expectations have been raised - and are continuing to be raised - and in turn, that inflates how long it takes to make a game. People will say "Why should I spend $60 on this game when I can spend $60 on this game that gives me more stuff?" (See: Immortals of Aveum, which itself has been in development for 4-5 years.)
The games that don't take that long are the stale yearly franchises - the FIFAs and CODs of the world. Even COD alternates between studios, with each installment taking 1-3 years. Some franchises (like Pokemon) have multiple teams within a studio that operate independently of one another; Arceus was made by the Let's Go team, while Scarlet/Violet was made by the Sword/Shield team.
If studios stop betting on long-term projects, you're going to wind up with stale yearly iterations - or half-baked games rushed out the door to meet a deadline. If it's true that you say AAA (and even AA!) dev isn't sustainable, then that's effectively calling for stale franchises pushing out cheap content for quick cash grabs (see also: Hollywood movies over the last decade).
It's also not just games this is happening to. Disney recently canned a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea show that was ready to go. There's the Scooby-Doo stuff that Max recently pulled before release as well. That stuff isn't my industry; I don't know how long it takes to make those things... but I know it costs about as much to make as a AAA game does.
There's probably a reckoning to be had for both industries, but I don't think the correction should be that drastic - and I think it will be bad for people who consume that content.
With TV/movies that are made for streaming this seems to be some classic Hollywood accounting. They are taking the write-offs in the cancelled content, while keeping subscribers strung along with the promise of new projects. The question is how long until consumers stop buying it.
I wish studios like Bethesda would adopt a more stylistic art style and games that were smaller in scope. I don’t need to explore 10 000 planets with realistic graphics. I just want a tight RPG with good world building.
I think this is the crux of the issue. There’s been a trend for AAA to push for bigger and more ambitious games, which leads to long, expensive development cycles. But pretty much everyone who is passionate about gaming can point to a game that stuck with them not because it was huge and ambitious, but because it did one thing really well. Games don’t have to be huge to be amazing.
Oh my god if I see one more “YOuR SwItCh 2 WiLl Be BrIckEd, NiNtEnDo iS aNtI cOnSuMeR!1!1!” post
Every fucking modern console with an internet connection does this. Switch 1 does this. If you hack your console, keep it off the internet. Brain dead easy. Furthermore, are we talking account brick/ban, or full hardware brick, because obviously they’re going to brick your account for online play, because hackers. If it’s a hardware brick (without being on the internet), then that would suck (but is not surprising, obviously duh Nintendo doesn’t want to lose money).
People will figure out how to hack Switch 2, give it a few years. Emulators of varying quality will be made, and will be of good quality eventually.
If you don’t want Switch 2 for the price, don’t buy it. Simple as that.
If that first line is your takeaway, you clearly didn’t actually read my post, in which I said my last console was an SNES.
So to presume my knowledge of modern consoles and belittle me because you’re wrong … breathtaking. I’ve no interest in a Switch. I posted this not because it has any chance of affecting me but because it seemed like news people who might want a switch could use. That’s the purpose of a news-aggregation site.
My comment is not personally directed at you, it’s just more about how everyone and their mom is talking about Nintendo’s recent decisions on piracy. Literally every tech/gaming community on Lemmy (and social media in general) is talking about it, and I’m tired of seeing it every day. I don’t mean to belittle you about your last console being the SNES, it’s just frustrating rhetoric that others have repeated because they truly seem to think Switch 2 is the only console doing this.
I understand what you mean about how someone who pirates probably would’ve never bought the game anyway, just like people (including me) who watch playthroughs of games that they never would’ve bought, hence tbe company was never gonna make money anyway. But even if companies know that fact, they’re not gonna just ignore people who break their ToS to pirate because they don’t want to lose money.
As you stated, you buy music of the stuff you originally pirated, and some game pirates might do that. But music has replay value compared to a lot of games. Once I finish a long RPG, there’s a very unlikely chance I’m picking it back up again, unless it’s many years later or it’s a hand-me-down to someone. If I pirated and played that type of game, I’m unlikely to buy it because why bother, other than to show support to the devs?
Companies don’t want to lose those who pirated and potentially would’ve bought the game. The whole point of piracy is that it has to be more convenient than buying the game, and since they know homebrewing can get to a very comfortable point, they don’t want to lose people to that.
My taste in games is somewhat different. I don’t look for storylines; I look for games with tremendous replay value like Factorio (which has the added benefit of endlessly being able add mods and start a totally new experience). I got it early enough – coincidentally because of an Ars review – that it was still just $20.
Some 800 hours later, that makes it 2.5 cents per hour for entertainment. And I’ll likely get the update pack when I have sufficient hardware, but I get that many popular games are more like books. I don’t tend to reread one as soon as I’m done, but in a few years, I might get a wild hair.
Oh yeah, it totally depends on the game. I do play and love the highly replayable stuff, but those games I almost never pirate, it’s usually something I already bought or would buy.I think one of the few non-online replayable games I’ve pirated was Rhythm Heaven on 3DS.
For quite some time, I’d watch YouTube playthroughs of about an hour and realized that in most cases, that was all I really needed. If shit starts looking grindy in an hour, you likely made a bad game.
I’m grateful for these streamers. They save me from wasting money.
We should make noise about it and enforce regulations that ban practises that do not allow people to own the things they own. We don’t want to end up like america.
If you hack your console and put it on the internet, don’t be surprised that you’re bricked. Do I think it’s a little extreme to brick a Switch that hasn’t even joined an online game? Yes, that does suck, but realistically any game company is not going to knowingly let you use a device that is hacked. Once again, if it’s just an account brick, then who cares, make a new one (why would you hack with your main account?). Hardware bricks are pretty shitty, but there’s no way you could fight that in court (I deserve the right to hack my console and get free games?).
Once they stop making updates, you’ll own the switch anyway, as then they don’t give a fuck/can’t do shit about hackers. I’ve hacked my WiiU and several 3DS because there are no more new updates to ever brick them, they’re obsolete/abandoned consoles.
There is a lot of content on semiconductor manufacturing (both in context of gaming and beyond) on !hardware, in one way or another anything related to semiconductors does impact both PC and console gaming (since CPUs and GPUs are key).
What’s uncertain? He’s solidifying income for the executive branch sans congress. And thus gutting congressional power over the executive branch before midterms.
arstechnica.com
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