the games/engines you cite as being “extremely well optimized” are both a lot older than UE5 and do a lot less than some of the “less optimized” games discussed (i.e. simpler lighting, no geometry virtualization, simplistic simulation, very static environments, etc.)
MT framework (which powered several RE’s, DMC, and other Capcom games was also a damn good engine). And Criterion’s Renderware was also an exception back in PS2 days.
Factorio is probably one of the best deals I’ve gotten; I paid $30 and at this point I’ve played it for at least 200 hours because I find it such a fun game.
I pay $20 to watch a mediocre rehashed superhero movie for 2 hours. I can absolutely pay $60 or $70 for something that gives me 10 hours of entertainment. And most games I pickup give me way more than 10 hours. So I find gaming to be worth it pretty much all the time.
Completely agree. They demand more than most communities, while enjoying one of the few products that has dodged inflation in a huge way. I remember paying $60 for games in 2000. 20+ years later, and I’m supposed to be livid that most are still $60. The amount of whining is so crazy it’s embarrassing.
Welll…it depends. If you count DLC, there are games that have greatly outpaced inflation.
The Sims 4 costs nothing for the “base game”, but with all DLC – and that is still coming out – it’s presently about $1,100.
Another factor is that in many cases, the market has expanded. Like, in 1983, it wasn’t that common to see adults in the US playing video games. I am pretty sure that in a lot of countries, basically nobody was playing video games in 1983. in 2023, 40 years later, the situation is very different. The costs of making a video game are almost entirely fixed costs, separate from how many copies you sell.
So…if there is a game out that that many, many other people want to play, it’s going to sell a lot more copies.
I don’t really see the point in getting upset about a price, though – I agree with you on that. I mean, unless the game was misrepresented to you…it’s a competitive market out there. Either it’s worth it to you or it’s not, and if it’s not, then play something else. If someone is determinedly charging some very high price for a game in a genre, and a lot of people want to play that genre and it can be made profitably at a lower price, some other developer is probably going to show up sooner or later and add a competitor to the mix.
I agree! It’s not easy to measure this and my equation of course falls a bit flat. But as a rule of thumb I think it’ll do. Albeit more so for the games I tend to play I guess.
My question stems from having seen people complain that pricy games were to short. I’m kind of thinking about it like a cinema visit you know? If you enjoyed the movie that was 2h and cost $10 (taken willy nilly from the air), how could you equate that to a game?
If it’s tedious, why would you keep playing? Just stop and move on to a different game. If you only play it for 15 hours before dropping it, then that becomes the figure for the $/t ratio.
Make the story automatically skippable. Every time. Many games explain the mission/objective in a short sentence or in the minimap anyway. Don’t make me watch a long cutscene or press/hold a button to skip the dialog. I’m never going to care.
Always have a tutorial or practice area to remind me how to play the game after I put it down for a month or so. Bad enough that the controller map is hidden in the menus (if there even is one). It don’t help much to just say what all 16 +/- buttons do, depending on what mode I’m in. I have to actually use them to get back into the swing of things, and I’d rather not jump right into the action (and potentially lose progress) right away.
As someone who is a little bit more interested in the story, I would love it if games had better story recaps for when you put the game down for extended periods of time too. If it’s a game with player choice track the major choices the player makes as well. I restart games so much because I like to jump around between games and then when I get back to some I can’t remember enough about what was happening to have any investment in the story anymore.
In the complete opposite direction, “I just want to enjoy the story” mode, which simplifies or removes more mechnically difficult sections of the game. A few games have this and it’s great. I appreciated it in Danganrompa.
I like how in Breath of the Wild, when it tells you to a button like ‘A’ or ‘Y’ for example, it shows you where that button is relative to the others. This way, if you aren’t super familiar with the controller, you don’t need to take your eyes off the screen.
Games needs to take into consideration people who are not used to playing. Games telling you “Press L3/R3” are the worst especially, most new player don’t even know that the sticks can click!
I agree that it’s a valid insight that a lot of basic input things are not explained and that it’s not obvious to a first time user.
But on the other hand, I think that the vast majority of players have, at this point, learned.
I remember way back when the personal computer was getting going, the first (or maybe second) Macintosh came out with an audio tape that one could play in conjunction with an automated demo showing how to click on things and drag and so forth. What icons and menus were. Today, we just kind of assume that people know that, because they’ve picked them up on the way, so it’s not like individual software packages have a tutorial telling someone what a window is and how to use it.
And I remember being at a library where there was some “computer training for senior citizens” thing going on near me, and some elderly lady was having trouble figuring out double-clicking and the instructor there said “don’t worry, double-clicking is one of the hardest things”. I mentally kind of rolled my eyeballs, but then I thought about that. I mean, I’d been double-clicking for years, and I bet that the first time I started out, I probably dicked it up too.
But I don’t know if the way to do that is to have every game incorporate a tutorial on the console’s hardware doing things like teaching players that the console sticks are clickable. Like, maybe the real answer is that the console should have a short tutorial. Most consoles these days seem to have an intrinsic concept of user accounts. When creating one, maybe run through the hardware tutorial.
Nintendo is very good about this in all their games. I think it’s primarily because on the Switch, if you are using an individual JoyCon, the actual button names are not consistent, so you have to rely on the position of the button to convey which one you want players to press. I don’t think you can control BOTW or TOTK with an individual JoyCon, but I imagine they have those assets just ready to go.
So, I really wanted to like Pyre. I love all the rest of Super Giant’s games, and I put maybe 10 hours into Pyre. But I think it was just too much Visual Novel for me. I wanted to spend more time playing the actual game (the rights?), but they only lasted maybe 5-10m and then it was back to reading and flying around.
But yeah, the art, sound, writing, and world are all beautiful. Just couldn’t get into a groove.
Simply watch no-voiceover playthroughs on youtube to see how a game is actually like. Don’t watch the whole video if you don’t want spoilers. Goes without saying this is only possible after the game release. Wait at least 3-6 months after release before buying any game. Or pirate it.
The game literally tells you you can use warm clothing or elixirs to keep warm. There’s even another method they don’t tell you, equipping an elemental weapon can change your temperature. Just have a flame blade on your back and you can survive running around in snow.
Learning where to buy clothes and how to make elixirs is not hard. Just talk to people near where you’re struggling.
Weapon durability is only a problem if you don’t exercise any discretion in which weapon you use for which situation. If you use your best weapon on weak enemies, you won’t have it later when you face stronger ones. So… don’t.
The Steam reviews really reflect the gap between players and critics. Some of this is because critics need a working relationship between them and studios. No one wants to burn the free review copy bridge.
I’d say the reviewed aren’t too biased, while the gameplay itself is really really fun the score gets some points off due to server issues, the reviewers knows it’s temporary, while the players score are justified for the time being, the reviewers won’t review bomb for a temporary issue
A lot of the reviews on steam were mentioning lack of coherent design. No reason for the game to exist when the previous title does. A lot of people seemed to say this isn’t a server only issue but a gameplay one as well.
There are a million reasons for this kind of thing, cited for years now. These reviewers are exposed to more truly awful games than most of us, they're less likely to latch on to one or two gripes in a score, they're more likely to put the person in charge of the review who's most likely to understand the game's strengths (meaning they put the Dark Souls fan on the Dark Souls review and the Madden fan on the Madden review, for instance), and all sorts of other reasons. Were it me reviewing any game, I'd immediately dock tons of points just for the sheer act of requiring a server connection, because it can only ever make the product worse, but that hasn't stopped people from loving Fortnite, Diablo IV, or any other live service game. It's really just as simple as they came away from the game with a different opinion than you would have or expect. It's not a conspiracy or incentives influencing it; not from real review outlets anyway. Actual review outlets don't sweat it if they get cut off from codes, as it's happened plenty of times, and they review the games anyway.
Depends on the scale of the reviewing site. I was a game reviewer for a few years and am now a game developer for the past 10. Reviewing sites absolutely want to keep those review codes and some sites don’t review games that don’t send them codes. Maybe with big titles they will go buy a copy but there is a race to have a review out by the time the public can purchase the game. It’s not money but time. That’s why review codes are important.
That said it’s also about appeasement of the game studios and the player base. 7 is “still good but could be better”. Many review sites are worried about angering the player base or studio and will be very cautious on giving anything less than a 5. For the longest time giant bomb was hated for giving lower scores as a popular review site. Now they hardly do reviews anymore because it’s not worth it.
That all said a lot of review sites are looking at simple recommendation blurbs instead of putting numbers to it. It avoids the whole issue of angering anyone just because number is too low or too high. Additionally as long as the blurb isn’t just the word “don’t” most published and studios will be content with it.
Being the first one out only matters to a few publications. You're not competing with IGN and Gamespot just by being out first, so it doesn't matter to most of them. Review scores tend to fall a few points after the first day the embargo breaks, because those are all the outlets the publisher bet would review it worse. I play Fantasy Critic, and you can observe this happening with just about every major release. That doesn't mean the ones reviewing it with early review codes are any less honest about it.
Being the first and having a review out in the first day a person can buy it are different. Very little care about first. Lots care about being available for when the players can buy it.
Also embargo only applies to those getting review copies. So clearly those studios value getting the game for free rather than buying the game without embargo. A lot of time goes into a review. It could be a week or 2 of work. So still getting the game early is more valuable.
That said the reviewers without embargo are still the ones not trying to get embargoed. So the early reviewers are more likely to say nicer things.
It's more about the price of all the new games put together, and then the fact that a lot of review copies are sent in advance and for viewership purposes getting a review out quickly is important, but with some bigger studios not sending copies in advance more regularly now maybe we'll see less incentive for reviewers to submit to their will.
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