Intellectual property is a resource. Corporations are in the business of hoarding resources to extort ration at a price. Microsoft doesn’t care about the studios. They care about owning ip.
Tsuro is a very quick, Zen game. It's tile placement and stone movement.
Obviously if you don't like S.H., you probably won't like The Resistance or Avalon. But from the same publisher, there's Coup (a game of creative lying), and Grifters (an engine-builder made up of resource collection with a crime theme). I like them both and they're very quick.
I don't think Fluxx could lead to long term frustration, because it's just so wild.
Catan is a classic and it's never caused tempers in my group.
Ticket to ride is really fun. You kind of do your own thing building train routes the whole time. Not too much overlap to block other people unless you know the routes super well, and even then you don’t know what people are going for based on the routes they have to complete. All in all, it’s one of my favorite board games.
Because that is part of the cycle of collapse and shock doctrine these corporations rely on to keep from being clowned on by moderately competent smaller game studios who actually are excited by the challenge to convince people to buy their art instead of shoving derivative slop down their customer’s throat as the cinematic monochoice for entertainment product category no. 1254…
If you mow the grass, the longterm benefit of preserving a strict monoculture is well worth the temporary mass destruction (from the perspective of the person driving the mower, it smells quite pleasant actually).
To be clear, the blades of grass are the smaller game studios on Microsoft’s lawn.
I don’t hear about this one often but it is always the first game I bust out for newbies.
Camel Up!
Players place bets on little camels that run around the track. The turns move quickly, people love gambling, and you some strategy will help you win, but it’s random enough that everybody has a chance at coming out ahead.
Someone might get the bet you had your eye on, but there’s no direct “attacks” on other players.
Cottage Garden is very satisfying. You Tetris together garden pieces to fill plots and you can cover a single spot with a sleeping kitty. There’s scoring and competition, but it’s not antagonistic in any way.
I’m also a big fan of cooperative games in general.
Jedi Survivor…god this game performs so bad. 5800X3D and a 4090 and those stutters. The game isn’t even that graphically impressive so I don’t know wtf is going on behind the scenes, probably some old code that constantly checks for micro transactions.
I think as long as these extra packs don’t replace work done by the devs on staff, it’s fine. Here are some things to consider:
While it’s not specifically gig work, many studios already hire contractors to work on games while in development, just to terminate the contracts after launch. This also isn’t unique to the games industry, as companies in many other industries regularly hire contractors for a specific project or duration.
If these content creator and modder packs stopped being sold, they won’t automatically equate to content being produced by the studio instead. The staff may be working on other DLC or expansions, after-launch support, or moved to another project.
The studio may decide to stop officially developing for a game, but community-made packs could be a way for them to add additional content.
I used to play Warframe, and the studio, DE, would regularly add skins that were designed and voted on by the community. The studio still produced their own cosmetics, so it was cool to have additional skins and also support designers in the community. Ultimately, I think we should look at these on a case-by-case basis, as we’ll probably see some studios doing it “right”, while others may lean a little too heavily on modder work.
Look at your nuanced take. I forgot those existed recently lol. I definitely agree that taking it company by company or DLC by DLC makes the most sense. I think I’m partially feeling a little burned by the fact these DLCs seem to have had more care and consideration put into them than some of the official stuff which is just often sooo buggy. Modders have come in and made some unplayable games absolutely magical, and I just worry they are being taken advantage of and us as consumers just don’t know, but it might just be me so used to negative gaming news it’s hard to take things positively anymore lol. I think the warframe model you described seems pretty good seeing as it was cosmetics and there was community involvement, so glad to see it’s been done well in other places too. Thank you for your response!
bin.pol.social
Aktywne