forbes.com

InfiniteHench, do gaming w Destiny 2’s Zavala Recasting Was A Tough, Correct Choice
@InfiniteHench@kbin.social avatar

Yeah Keith David rules. Great choice.

Syo, do gaming w The Main Lesson From ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Should Be ‘People Hate Microtransactions’
@Syo@kbin.social avatar

The lesson to take away is that AAA != Good game. Never pre order. Play demo, beta. Only play if you're time is respected.

Artificially designed grinds, limitations, time gates should be auto no buy.

Pickle_Jr, do games w ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

As someone who hasn’t ever really gotten into cRPGs before, how is the game? Is it hard to get into/is there a big learning curve to this game?

timespace,

It’s heavy on the D&D 5e rulebook, if you have any level of familiarity with that it will all come naturally.

If you don’t, that’s ok too, they did a really good job describing rolls, saving throws, attack rolls, etc, in the guided tooltips.

cazool, do games w ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

So… I’m the only one not playing it?

throwsbooks,

Nope, I’m playing DOS2, since that’s been sitting in my steam library for way too long!

THEN maybe I’ll BG3. If my laptop can handle it…

boletus,

I’m finishing D:OS2 first with another party. Also Larian games are always better a couple months or so after release, so I don’t mind waiting. So no not the only one :)

AlecSadler, do games w ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

That’s awesome. Also the lack of micro transactions makes me want to support them more. I kinda wish they had a donate button or something.

magic_lobster_party,

The donate button is buying the game and their previous titles.

PanaX,

Especially Divinity 2: Original Sin.

circuitfarmer,
@circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I almost never buy a game on opening day for full price. But fuck microtransaction nonsense – as soon as the devs made an official statement about it, I was on board.

meldrik,

Buy the DRM free version on GOG if you haven’t already.

barely_aware, do gaming w Microsoft’s Xbox Series S Parity Demands Are Now Handing Sony Free Wins

I still don’t really understand this. Local splitscreen on a game the size of baldurs gate does make sense to me as being a technical hurdle, obviously rendering the game world twice is extremely taxing.

I keep seeing complaints about other games also, lots off people seem to be blaming the Series S for Remnant 2s slow xbox patches.

The Series S is basically an X with a weaker GPU, how are games (that also release on PC) not scalable enough to run on the S at 1080p when they can run at 4k on the X? I’d love a technical answer, if I replace my 3080 with a 1060 I could run the game on my PC and a lower resolution/graphic settings. How is this different from the Series X/S? I’m not a programmer/developer and I’d really like if someone could explain too me why the Series S is a problem because from my view point it’s lazy developers with unoptimised games

PenguinTD,

did you think of the possibility that even Larian’s low settings still can’t run on series S? Given the amount of assets I saw it’s actually quite possible that vram requirement are pretty high and that’s why PS5 have delay as well so they can figure out ways to consolidate textures used etc. Like they can’t even manage to let me stack rope or water bottle properly in inventory(maybe some asset id not cleaned up during development), so having excessive vram usage is fairly easy/common for content heavy games.

barely_aware,

To be clear, I’m not trying to attack Larian here. I think splitscreen is a much bigger technical hurdle than other games have to deal with and delaying it on the Xbox was the right idea. But, the PC versions minimum requirements is 4GB vram and recommended 8GB vram. The Series S has 10GB vram. I’m more annoyed by the anti Series S rhetoric going around about it holding all games back, because most games with a PC release scale no problem

Triplexxor,
@Triplexxor@beehaw.org avatar

What you forgot to consider is that the Xbox has to share the RAM with the VRAM. The game on PC has 8GB RAM and 4GB VRAM as minimum. That is 12GB of RAM. The Series S only has 10GB. Which is 2GB less than minimum.

DdCno1,

You needs less RAM in total on a system with a unified memory architecture, like both Xbox consoles.

neshura,
@neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

True but not 2GB less, the Xbox is also still running an OS albeit a slimer one. I’d guess the smaller OS saves at best 1GB of RAM.

barely_aware,

I did not realise that the Series S shared it’s Ram and VRAM. That is something I had missed. Thank you

HumbleFlamingo,

And with PC, there is only one view point at one time. You can have characters all over the map, but it only needs to render one at a time. Worst case it loads and unloads assets as you switch back and forth. With split screen console, gotta have both loaded at the same time.

red,

It’s not baseless rhetoric when a dev team has literally called it out as a big tech hurdle.

PenguinTD,

See my other reply, 4gb beam is not the same requirement for series S cause consoles use unified memory.(also it only have 8GB for game)

thegamer.com/xbox-series-s-apparently-vram-issues…

neshura,
@neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

What you’re not seeing or understanding:

The Xbox Seried S does not have 10GB VRAM it has 10GB VRAM/RAM that can be dynamically allocated to whatever the game needs.

Baldur’s Gate 3 needs 12GB combined VRAM/RAM at minimum. While the Xbox OS peobably doesn’t eat as much RAM as Windows does the difference is apparently not 2GB which leaves the Series S with not eniugh RAM to power the game.

As others mentioned for the Steamdeck Splitscreen was disabled, however that was likely done to save GPU performance, unlike the Series S the Steamdeck has enough RAM (16GB) to meet the minimum requirements.

Helvedeshunden,

Today’s Digital Foundry video suggests that this is far from the issue. Even the highest texture settings fit comfortably in 6 GB. IIRC it was around 4,5 - and consoles typically go for high rather than ultra settings.

PenguinTD,

Xbox series S have 8GB for game, so while BG3 might consume around 4-5GB on PC, console with unified memory couldn’t afford this. All the other assets(model/animation/audio clips/massive amount of icons) needs to be loaded as well. With split screen, you can have one person tries to go into conversation (that streaming in high res texture/face models, etc) while the other one stay and still render the world with all the things their camera can move around with.

Helvedeshunden,

I went back and had a look. It’s between 2165MB and 3720 MB based on settings. Doesn’t really seem problematic on the low end.

PenguinTD,

I don’t know what to say other than maybe you should send Larian your resume and type “I am sure series S can be ported no issue, here is my numbers.” I am sure Larian would love to have simultaneous launch like PS5 and you can cut a really good deal if you can manage to pull that. BUT, you would have to pass the [Persuasion] check though, hope you have high cha to back it up. :)

Helvedeshunden,

Very funny. Just saying that textures don’t seem to be the issue. Any number of other things might be from rendering methods to whatever.

K0bin,

For one viewport!

The problem with Series S is split screen.

Also that’s 6GB of dedicated VRAM. Consoles have unified memory, so you need to fit the OS and the non-graphics memory in there too.

hypelightfly,

That's only VRAM. You're missing the other half.

Helvedeshunden,

It’s unified RAM on Xbox. And medium settings are 2165MB on PC.

stopthatgirl7,
!deleted7120 avatar

It wasn’t delayed on the PS5; that was the original release plan. They moved the release UP for PC because they didn’t want to have to compete with Starfield’s release. Since that’s not coming out on PS5, they left the release date as is.

PenguinTD,

Right, I forgot about this, thanks for correction.

magic_lobster_party,

Split screen might be difficult for Series S due to memory constraints. Keep in mind that all assets both players are seeing must be loaded in memory simultaneously. This includes textures, models and animations. These assets are normally not loaded into the memory unless they’re visible by the camera. This becomes problematic if there are two cameras facing different parts of the map at the same time. Then you potentially need to double the memory requirements, which the Series S might not have.

HumbleFlamingo,

The Series S is basically an X with a weaker GPU

If it was just a GPU difference, you’d be right it should be easy to just run it less pretty. But the memory limitations are the real issue. The X has 16 GB of memory and the S has 10 GB. And worse, the memory performance is drastically different. The X has 10 GB that runs at 560 GB/s and 6 that runs at 336 GB/s, where as the S has 8 GB at 224 GB/s and 2 GB at 56GB/s. (I did not miss a zero on the last value)

wizardbeard,

Holy crap that’s an absurd kneecapping with the RAM. No wonder they’re having parity issues

jordanlund,
!deleted7836 avatar

It has less RAM than the Xbox ONE X as well and is incapable of running backwards compatible games with Xbox One X enhancements.

videogameschronicle.com/…/xbox-series-s-likely-wo…

Hdcase,

Holy shit I had no idea. The Xbox One X really is more powerful, at least in some regards, than a system that came out 3 years later.

belated_frog_pants,

Wow i did not realize that about the ram

barely_aware,

I was unaware that the memory difference was so drastic. I was under the wrong assumption it was the same speed but less (as less is needed for 1080p)

can,

Some phones have more RAM than a Series S? Wow.

XTornado,

They are usually more expensive too tbh.

Smoke,

Xbox owners who are not following video game news every second of the day might find themselves buying a Series S version thinking they can play co-op with their friend who owns a Series X and they…can’t.

The problem here is implied to be local co-op between X and S players?

barsoap,

The main difficulty with split screen is that you need to be able to fit everything you need to render the scene into RAM, twice. Let’s go through some cases:

Just rendering to a higher resolution still lets you get away with the same amount of RAM if you use low-res textures, or a moderate increase because you’re using high-res textures, but only in the foreground – all you need is enough GPU compute power to push the pixels.

If you’re rendering VR both camera perspectives are going to be nearly identical, looking at the same objects, so RAM use is nearly identical to a single camera. Your frame time targets are much stricter in VR, you have to have high and very regular fps or people are going to puke, but again that’s compute pressure, not memory pressure.

In the split-screen case all bets are off: When players are at opposite sides of the map there may be literally zero meshes and textures in common between those two areas and you need twice the RAM for twice the amount of camera views. Nothing in common is the worst case, yes, but it’s bound to happen, and not leave PR in a situation where they have to say “We degraded performance when players are far apart to promote an atmosphere of closeness and cooperation”.

hypelightfly,

The Series S is basically an X with a weaker GPU

And significantly less RAM, which is probably the issue here.

SkullHex2, (edited ) do gaming w Microsoft’s Xbox Series S Parity Demands Are Now Handing Sony Free Wins
@SkullHex2@lemmy.ml avatar

deleted_by_author

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  • spacedogroy,

    The Series S is more powerful: eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2022-steam-deck-vs-x…

    But the Steam Deck is a portable console, so the design considerations are different, so it’s a bit of an apple to oranges comparison. On pure numbers, though, Series S will perform better. (Steam Deck is still awesome though 👍)

    hh93,

    I’d guess that the series X would need to show at least full HD

    With the Steamdeck it only needs 720p which is a pretty big gain in performance

    Jinxyface,

    800p, not 720p, but yes

    HumbleFlamingo,

    The problem is the memory usage for split screen multi player. Steam Deck doesn’t do split screen.

    skullgiver, (edited )
    @skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • HumbleFlamingo, (edited )

    I’m not sure. I saw some one comment that they were running split screen on Windows, but I can’t personally verify that. Based on what I know of software development, it’s likely part of every version of it but not necessarily easily accessible. For example DoS2 has split screen coop on PC, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at it. You have to plug in 2 controllers and do some extra steps but it works.

    Maybe if you plug in a second controller on steam deck you can?

    EDIT: missed an ly on likely

    ReadyUser30,

    No. You can run split screen on non-Steam Deck PCs, and in fact you can launch BG3 on a Steam Deck as if it were a proper PC with split screen enabled (it prob just won’t run well).

    beefcat,
    @beefcat@beehaw.org avatar

    Feature parity is not a requirement for Deck verification, Larian simply disabled split screen on the platform and called it a day.

    Microsoft requires feature parity between Series X and S versions of the same game. If you want to support split screen on Series X then you must support it on Series S as well.

    SkullHex2, (edited )
    @SkullHex2@lemmy.ml avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • o_oli,

    Yeah it’s basically like a launch option that will configure it in a certain way. You can in fact with a launch option tell the game to ignore this, and play split screen on Deck. I have seen people doing it but I doubt it runs well but I guess that’s the beauty of PC/Deck gaming that you can do whatever you want to and make up your own mind.

    hypelightfly,

    The default profile for Steam Deck disables split screen. You can enable it but it will run like shit. It running at ~30 fps with the default profile means it can be verified.

    twistedtxb, do gaming w Microsoft’s Xbox Series S Parity Demands Are Now Handing Sony Free Wins
    @twistedtxb@lemmy.ca avatar

    No Series S owner will be mad if a game has Series X specific exclusive content. MS is shooting itself in the foot

    narc0tic_bird,

    I think people would be mad. Imagine you play a game at your friend’s home on his Series X, and then proceed to buy the game so you can play multiplayer online, only to then have a certain features or game modes missing (say you get team death match but not battle royale because it uses too much memory).

    It’s not that easy to communicate feature disparity. Some people probably don’t even know which Xbox they have.

    acastcandream, (edited )

    At some point, it’s on you to know what your machine can and can’t handle. They put big letters on the front of each game telling you if it’s able to play on the series X and series S. It is right there lol. 

    Also, with smart delivery, it would probably be trivial for Microsoft to have a modal pop up saying “this game is not optimized for series S and will not play, do you still want to purchase?”

    No, the real issue here is developers (not their fault mind you). The moment Microsoft says “you don’t have to make it playable on the S,“ they simply won’t. Because why would you? 

    red,

    A dev team is more likely to axe Xbox release or features. So because S won’t have enough memory/gpu grunt, X won’t be getting that feature either.

    acastcandream,

    Why would they completely abandon Xbox just because the series S won’t be required? 

    red,

    S is required if you want to release a game on X. This means you cannot leverage the technical maximum of X, ever, because the game and all it’s features must run on S.

    acastcandream, (edited )

    Yes we know. The comment at the top of this chain is talking about whether or not Microsoft could stop allowing that requirement and the potential blowback. Scroll to the top and start from the beginning you’ll see. 

    red,

    You still don’t seem to comprehend what I said. Hint: not about blowback.

    acastcandream, (edited )

    We know microsoft’s current policy. It’s obvious we do. Please stop this and discuss the topic at hand or move on.

    red,

    Are you really not comprehending what I said? To re-iterate: the cost-to-returns ratio to spend man hours for certain features is not feasible because of how much time would need to be spent. This, at worst means some titles will simply not have feature X, and at average means the “worst first” development method means some games will just be worse, than they could have been, if it were merely X, PS5 and PC to consider.

    I think we agree that MS bungled their approach and overestimated that cloud powered gaming would take off. But the reality of it is that S has become a thing that holds down game development, and like with BG3, gives sony pseudo exclusivity on consoles. It’s also likely what caused 343 to never ship couch-coop on Halo. It worked to some extent, but simply wasn’t worth the hours to finish for S.

    Sooner or later MS has to tackle the issue somehow, and if I had to guess, they’ll rather push for a 0.5 gen jump instead of just screwing with people who bought S.

    It’s easier to say a game is “newest gen optimized” than to backtrack on their promise.

    If you are talking about something completely different, then no worries, carry on. This was merely my 2 cents on the topic.

    acastcandream,

    Are you really not comprehending what I said?

    I guess not and frankly I just don’t feel like speaking further with you given the completely needless hostility over what is likely just our talking at cross purposes. Have a good one.

    red, (edited )

    I did not mean that in a hostile way. I asked because you kept replying to my comments, but disregarding their content while telling me to stop talking.

    Based on the vote ratio, other people got the point just fine and didn’t feel like they needed to tell me to be silent or scroll back up.

    Sorry if it felt hostile.

    acastcandream,

    sorry if it felt hostile.

    It did because it was. Are you really not comprehending what I said?

    This is “I’m sorry you feel that way” patronizing nonsense man.

    Gaywallet,
    @Gaywallet@beehaw.org avatar

    This is a reminder to be nice on our instance

    Hdcase,

    Yep and a lot of times, we won’t even hear about it. It’ll just be another game that happens to be on Playstation and not Xbox, a defacto exclusive of sorts.

    nathris,

    If a game can’t run on the Series S it means it also can’t be ported to the PC. Turn down the resolution and graphics settings until you get the same fps target and continue in with your day.

    I would expect any game from a developer that complains about this to be so poorly optimized that it runs like it would on the Series S on the bigger consoles, and likely have garbage gameplay as well because they spent all of their budget on graphics.

    stopthatgirl7,
    !deleted7120 avatar

    Ok, but game they’re talking about here, Baldur’s Gate 3, runs just fine on PC. But they can’t get a specific feature to run on Series S that can run on X. You might want to read the article before commenting?

    acastcandream,

    Hell it runs on a steam deck

    snowbell,
    @snowbell@beehaw.org avatar

    What. None of this comment makes any sense.

    magic_lobster_party,

    Problem is that it can turn into a slippery slope. Where should MS draw the line if they start to allow Series X exclusive content? Can developers cut entire game modes from the S version if they just ask kindly enough? Or maybe ignore the S version completely? The risk is that developers are going to abuse this opportunity.

    MS wants people to see the Series S as a viable purchase. Why should you buy it when you won’t be able to play the next big release in full?

    conciselyverbose,

    Yes, they should be able to say "this game doesn't run on series S" because it's significantly worse than the other options and it doesn't deserve the work it takes. It doesn't even have CPU parity, which is a much bigger deal than less GPU cores.

    magic_lobster_party,

    That will just betray all the customers who bought Series S. Will they upgrade to a Series X to play the next big thing? No, they will probably just buy a PS5 instead. Why should they continue to stay loyal with MS?

    conciselyverbose,

    It's not capable.

    They might have made the bed and be stuck in it, but it was a bad plan that substantially sabatoges the actual next gen console.

    red,

    It was a stupid promise and even worse requirement for publishing a game on the platform.

    They should start considering them just different consoles and remove the parity (and requirement to release on both).

    acastcandream,

    How is it any different than the number of games coming out that betray all the things they promised?

    As a series S owner, I never expected this thing to be able to play modern AAA games for 7-10 years like previous gens. It’s delusional. It was $300 with a controller ffs lol

    acastcandream, (edited ) do gaming w Microsoft’s Xbox Series S Parity Demands Are Now Handing Sony Free Wins

     I have a series S and even I think it’s unreasonable to expect full parity with a PS5/XSX after three or four years. It’s a $300 piece of hardware - it is remarkable what it does at its price point. It will be useful for a good 10 years, but it will not be able to keep up with new games after 5 at most in my opinion. It’ll be great for Indies or back catalogs.

    They need to stop trying to make it functionally a series X and focus more on making it a gamepass/xcloud machine. As it is, it’s just an albatross around their neck.

    Edit: Everything signaled that they were going to make it into a xcloud machine essentially. I’m not sure why they haven’t really pushed that harder.

    stopthatgirl7, (edited )
    !deleted7120 avatar

    I feel like their planning for it was really shortsighted - like they were hoping to get a as many people to buy the console as possible so they could “win” the console war early by having more people adopt it by putting out a cheap console people who didn’t want to spend so much would be drawn to, and weren’t really thinking beyond the first few years of the generation. Maybe they figured once they had the lead, they cold get people up upgrade or something. By they didn’t get the early lead and now the cheaper console means devs can’t really fully develop for Xbox. This will only get worse as more games start getting developed.

    phillaholic,

    Microsoft is terrible at Gaming. I fear how everyone seems to be ok with them buying companies up and putting games on GamePass. It’s not going to end well. It’s not even going well if you really take notice.

    acastcandream,

    It’s going great for me as the consumer with Game Pass. I have had over two years of essentially free games, because Microsoft rewards is too generous and easy to exploit. But I have no illusions about whether or not this consolidation is good for the industry. It simply isn’t. Yeah I guess y’all can call me out or whatever for using it anyway, but the series S with nearly free GamePass has just been too good for me as a dad with a full-time job and children. I’m still against the merger lol

    I vote with my dollar where I can, but sorry, sometimes I make compromises just like anybody else. That being said, if I have to start actually paying for it, even at the current price, I’m out. So basically it depends on when they decide they don’t want rewards to stay around.

    UngodlyAudrey,
    !deleted4132 avatar

    I mean, if you’re basically getting GamePass for free, I don’t think anyone would blame you for using it. May as well, right?

    acastcandream,

    Some people can be pretty dogmatic about this stuff but yeah, I feel like it’s better than cash. Especially because the stuff I do for rewards gives them pretty useless data and I have all kinds of privacy stuff running in the background protecting my data

    belated_frog_pants,

    Its going great now. The monopoly they want is to increase charges on you and you have to pay forever to keep access. This is specifically the point of gamepass.

    It may workout for you in the short rub, but you are still losing choice and value (you only rent access) in the process.

    red,

    As many people already boycott sony consoles due to them paying extra to game studios to never release certain games on xbox, there’s literally no alternative currently.

    And Game Pass is great, if they pump the price too much, it will just seize to be relevant and life goes on. AAA games are pretty dirt cheap considering prices have increased way slower than inflation and average game complexity.

    BadlyDrawnRhino,
    @BadlyDrawnRhino@aussie.zone avatar

    But Microsoft is doing exactly the same thing, only instead of paying for exclusivity of one title, they’re buying developers so not just their next title, but all future releases will be exclusive, up until MS decides they’re not worth it and dumps them.

    Sony absolutely participates in anti-consumer practices, but let’s not pretend that MS is any better.

    red,

    Day one releases on PC and Xbox, and coming later on PS5 is quite a bit different to day one on PS5, year later on PC and never on Xbox.

    There’s bad, and then there’s “you’ll never play this unless you buy our console”

    phillaholic,

    What games have Sony bought exclusively too? I’ve seen them pay for development of several. Microsoft has taken away sequels from PlayStation in the past. That’s worse imo.

    acastcandream,

    I feel like I made it pretty clear that I understand it’s going great right now specifically. 

    Oneeightnine,
    !deleted4231 avatar

    I think the problem they’ve given themselves is that they pushed it as a cheaper alternative to the X whilst also maintaining that it’ll be able to play the same games.

    How do they go about messaging that can’t be the case going forward without pissing off those that spent the money on the S in the first place.

    acastcandream,

    As I said in another comment, I own a series S, and I think it’s pretty ridiculous of me to expect a $300 piece of hardware to be able to play the latest games past five years. Even with what they have said, I just kind of assumed it can’t be true. 

    I imagine in two or three years I will switch to dev mode and boot retro arch on it. 

    Oneeightnine,
    !deleted4231 avatar

    Right but you’re probably a little more clued up to this sort of stuff than the average consumer who’s seen the marketing and thought ‘oh lovely, I don’t need a disk drive’ in this thing.

    Both my brothers own the S. It’s an incredible little machine, but imo they screwed the proverbial pooch when they pushed this as a 1080p alternative to the more powerful Series X.

    acastcandream,

    Hey I get consistent 1440p and decent upscaled 4k! lol

    NuPNuA,

    In almost every other case, it is playing them. BG3 is one outlier.

    Oneeightnine,
    !deleted4231 avatar

    Only takes one though. As soon as someone looking at buying a console sees there’s a chance they’ll miss out, they’ll potentially make the decision to go with the Sony machine instead.

    Microsoft already has an exclusive issue, this isn’t doing anything but compounding that issue.

    NuPNuA,

    Oh totally, this isn’t a good thing. At the least Xbox has its own, hopefully great, RPG coming out at the same time.

    bc3114, do gaming w Microsoft’s Xbox Series S Parity Demands Are Now Handing Sony Free Wins

    I thought texture sampler feedback could help mitigate the ram issue?

    _sideffect, do games w Microsoft’s Xbox Series S Parity Demands Are Now Handing Sony Free Wins

    The medium had split screen on the series s

    woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    The medium had split screen on the series s

    The problem is that with split screen in BG3 the entire game, incl. all background calculations, need to run twice. Split screen is disabled on Steam Deck for that reason but can be enabled via command line and frame rate drops to under 10FPS: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyaeoUdc10A

    EeeDawg101,

    Geez. I wonder what the performance is like on the PS5 in split mode. It’ll obviously have some sort of performance hit. Maybe it’ll be a drop from 60 to 30fps? Have they confirmed if the main game will be 60?

    _sideffect,

    So why dont they disable it for the S as well? But keep it for the X?

    WarmSoda,

    The words under the picture tell you why.

    lustyargonian,

    And so would Baldur’s Gate 3 when it launches on Xbox, it just takes much more effort and dev time than Series X/PS5 would. It isn’t that it is impossible, but that it is a lot of work.

    Veraxus, do gaming w The Main Lesson From ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Should Be ‘People Hate Microtransactions’
    @Veraxus@kbin.social avatar

    That article completely misses the forrest for the trees.

    It’s a complete game. It was created with vision, passion, love, and complete creative freedom. It has a great story and interesting characters. It provides lots of player agency. It is unflinchingly candid, mature, and uncensored. Your choices, actions, and inaction ACTUALLY MATTERS. There is no DRM. There are no live service strings. You can play alone and/or with friends. There are no strangers or PvP to ruin your game. And yes, there are also no micro-transactions.

    The lesson that BG3 offers isn’t just one thing… it’s a LOT of things. But the best way to sum it up is: it’s a great game and it treats players/customers with respect.

    Pyr_Pressure,
    @Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca avatar

    I have avoided reading much about the game. I am loving it, but I have no idea at what point in the game that I currently am. It could end in the next ten minutes and I’ll be satisfied with my purchase, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another 10+ hours. This is what I was waiting for Bethesda to release as the next Skyrim successor if they hadn’t decided to milk that cow until troll cheese came out. It’s everything I want in a game. Story, gameplay, length, affordability, fun, and no microtransactions making my efforts feel worthless.

    Perfide,

    I legitimately have no idea how much more game I have. I finally got to the edge of Baldurs Gate and have been chilling here for like 10 hours, haven’t even gotten inside the city proper yet.

    hh93,

    I think the most important part is that it launched without DRM on GOG and was able to be pirated from day 1 and it STILL was a huge success because people knew that the game isn’t trying anything shady to get even more money from you

    It’s just something people actually want to support and not like people feel like even if they buy the game they only have half an experience if they don’t spend more money later

    I really hope the next financial report from Larian is making people think differently about the necessity of putting aggressive DRM in their games

    People don’t pirate because they don’t want to pay - they pirate because they don’t trust the game to bit pull more shady shit later and not be worth it in the end

    Annoyed_Crabby,

    -800k concurent player on launch

    -no drm and can be pirated on first day

    -some exec: that could’ve been higher if you get Denuvo in it.

    hierophant_nihilant,

    Omfg, I’m 100% sure there are corporate cunts who are saying that

    Souvlaki,

    Same execs who think it’s such a waste not adding $15 outfit DLC to BG3

    EremesZorn,

    So far, every article I’ve seen about Baldur’s Gate 3’s effect on the gaming industry has been horse shit. Other studios and publishers are not “panicking,” they’re not going to rethink microtransactions, and they’re not going to be daunted by this release; some devs have said as much already along the lines of “Yeah don’t expect this breadth and scope from us going forward, because it doesn’t work for our games.”
    This game is not the industry-spanning “gotcha” these writers have been trying to make it out to be. AAA devs or publishers are going to continue their nonsense because people will continue to buy their shit anyway, and they know it.
    All that said, BG3 is the best game I’ve played in a number of years and hands-down the best cRPG I’ve ever played. It smokes Divinity, Icewind Dale, the previous BG games, NWN, etc. So if any studios do happen to have a positive takeaway from this, maybe we’ll see at least some of that polish in games down the line.

    Steeve,

    Not to mention it’s built on top of an already super popular brand

    acastcandream,

    It’s also a rare example of where a massive budget without restrictions (relatively speaking) can lead to amazing results.

    Usually one of two things happens: the publisher is tired of dumping money into a project then force it to market too early, or scope creep happens and the developers bite off way more than they can chew and there’s nothing they can do past a certain point.

    Larian managed to dodge both of these bullets. Not by luck, of course. But they dodged them nonetheless.

    Gargleblaster, do gaming w The Main Lesson From ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Should Be ‘People Hate Microtransactions’
    @Gargleblaster@kbin.social avatar

    Baldur’s Gate 3 is certainly the latest and most prominent example, but Elden Ring, both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. The Witcher 3. The Last of Us Part 1 and 2. No cash shops, substantive DLC, if there is any.

    And what do all those games have in common?

    They're solo games.

    It's PvP and MMOs where you can purchase an advantage, show off your bling, or purchase expansions to get a head start on the competition. That is where the microtransaction infestation occurs.

    alternative_factor,
    @alternative_factor@kbin.social avatar

    Yup, this is why the last two Diablo games have been always online, no one is going to spend $25 on a skin macrotransaction when nobody else can even seen it.

    NightOwl,

    I have wondered what percentage of gamers don’t purchase any mtx in those type of games. We get revenue numbers, but I’ve wondered how many gamers avoid that aspect while playing the game.

    Firemyth, (edited )

    The problem is you only need a handful of whales to buy all the things for mtx to be profitable

    NightOwl,

    Oh yes. Well aware of that. Just more wondering how much of the userbase never actually spends money. Curious as to either how much of a majority or minority the active users who don’t buy any mtx is.

    alternative_factor,
    @alternative_factor@kbin.social avatar

    I've been an MMO gamer for a VERY long time and I would say the whaling thing is a perfect analogy. I often pre-order expansions to MMOs like WoW and FFXIV but I have never bought cosmetics other than two race changes for FF, which would make me a "dolphin".

    I noticed in WoW and FFXIV that if someone has one mount you can only get from the cash shop, they are VERY likely to have bought TONS of other cosmetics from the cash shop. If they don't have any cash shop mounts, they won't have any cosmetics from it either. It seems like most people are either "all in" or nothing, people like me are very rare.

    frog,

    I’m a lot like you as well. I’m one of those players who buys cosmetics from cash shops when I see something I really fall in love with, but I don’t feel the need to buy everything. I look at it as an occasional treat: sure I won’t own it when the game shuts down at some point in the future, but if I spent the money on, say, a takeaway meal or a night out, that lasts a couple hours and then it’s gone. I’m definitely a dolphin, not a whale.

    But I wouldn’t spend a vast fortune on trying to get everything if I have to spend real money. In some MMOs I’ve bought cash shop cosmetics from the auction house, though. I think that can distort the impression of how much someone has spent in the cash shop, making it look like they’re “all in”, when in reality, they’ve just been playing for so long that they have more in-game currency than they know what to do with.

    I reckon the “dolphins” are more common than you think.

    Veraxus,
    @Veraxus@kbin.social avatar

    It’s a small percentage (10% on avg), but those who do spend, tend to be repeat spenders.

    NightOwl,

    Is there any actual concrete sources? It’s what I believe to be true too, but would be nice to see something concrete. It is fascinating how a small percentage of gamers change the landscape for a huge majority of gamers.

    Rai,

    D2R was fucking stellar.

    …different studio, though.

    ampersandrew,
    @ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

    I don't want the lesson to be learned that devs should only make single player games either. Baldur's Gate 3 itself is co-op, for instance, and Elden Ring has substantial online components for multiplayer and otherwise.

    iAmTheTot,
    @iAmTheTot@kbin.social avatar

    That is where the microtransaction infestation occurs.

    Horse armour has entered the chat.

    worfamerryman,

    I wonder if this is largely why I stopped playing online games?

    I played overwatch1 a bunch and while it had dlc, it was nothing you could unlock on your own. I stopped playing overwatch 2 almost immediately.

    irmoz,

    Dude MTX are all over solo games too, what are you smoking

    Yearly1845,

    deleted_by_author

  • Loading...
  • EremesZorn, (edited )

    No, you’re right, it’s all of them. Ubisoft is one of the worst perpetrators of this shit actually. Far Cry games having an online shop is so unnecessary.
    Edit: In fact, they’re so bad they attempted to implement NFTs in Ghost Recon. Like… what?
    That didn’t last though.

    vanquesse,

    the nft implementation in breakpoint was so bad that it seemed like it was missing the point on purpose. It was just different serial numbers printed on a helmet and the rarer the helmet the more play time you had to have on your account to actually wear it. So the nfts were barely unique, didn’t look cool and you couldn’t just buy whatever to show it off. Respect to the devs that managed to pull this off when execs asked for nfts.

    Neato,
    @Neato@kbin.social avatar

    And...every single ubisoft game. And bethesda games. I could go on...

    And Baldur's Gate is multiplayer. You can easily play 4-player online co-op.

    whatisallthis, do gaming w The Main Lesson From ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Should Be ‘People Hate Microtransactions’

    The job of the AAA gaming company is to make money, not good games.

    For the same reason McDonalds is never going to serve filet mignon, big gaming companies are never going to release feature-compete passion projects.

    hagelslager,

    Indeed, the job of most AAA game studios is to get as much money as possible from the gamers to their shareholders.

    tonytins,
    @tonytins@pawb.social avatar

    Doesn’t mean people should accept their attempts to nickle and dime them.

    terminhell,

    Not exactly, though I see your point. I think it would be more accurate if McDonald’s charged for ketchup, mustard, salt, drink cups, lids, straws etc.

    AbsolutelyNotABot,

    The big difference with physical goods is that it’s much harder to steal a McDonald’s burger that it is to crack a single player, offline game. Furthermore, once you ate your burger, if you want more, you have to buy another because it’s a consumables.

    On the other hand games are prone to piracy, expecially on pc, you pay once but can play anytime while patched and updates require prolonged work after you purchase.

    It isn’t strange that developers look at dlc, microtransanction or game as a service with subscription, because they allow a stable flow of income that can support development, and it’s harder to avoid paying when the game is always online and stuff like that.

    Sordid,
    @Sordid@beehaw.org avatar

    Furthermore, once you ate your burger, if you want more, you have to buy another because it’s a consumables.

    The same goes for single-player offline games, though. There’s only so much entertainment you can get out of one before you’ve seen everything, get bored, and look for another one.

    you pay once but can play anytime while patched and updates require prolonged work after you purchase

    If a studio fails to budget for that and make sure those costs are included in the price of the game, it frankly deserves to go bust.

    AbsolutelyNotABot,

    There’s only so much entertainment you can get out of one before you’ve seen everything, get bored, and look for another one.

    You’re absolutely right, but that’s true from “your perspective”. For you the fame might last 50 hours and that’s all, but the developers still need to work on big patches, content and fixes even years after release.

    If a studio fails to budget for that and make sure those costs are included in the price of the game, it frankly deserves to go bust

    And this introduces another topic I think. Would the average consumer willing to spend more for a game with everything in it? AAA already cost 70$ at launch, would the average consumer accept further price increases, or would selling plummet in comparison with reduced price+dlc or free to play with microtransanction?

    At the end companies are not inherently “evil” they just look for what works and what doesn’t by trial and error

    Sordid, (edited )
    @Sordid@beehaw.org avatar

    the developers still need to work on big patches, content and fixes even years after release

    Why would they need to do that? If it’s years down the line, there shouldn’t be any bugs left to fix by that point. And offline single-player games don’t need regular content drops. Sure, an expansion or two might be nice, but those don’t come free. Only online games need to constantly feed their players new content in order to keep them hooked and coming back to buy more MTX.

    Would the average consumer willing to spend more for a game with everything in it? AAA already cost 70$ at launch, would the average consumer accept further price increases, or would selling plummet in comparison with reduced price+dlc or free to play with microtransanction?

    Oh sales would plummet for sure, but it would still make a profit, just not as much. If From Soft and Larian can do it, everyone can. They just don’t wanna. (see below)

    At the end companies are not inherently “evil” they just look for what works and what doesn’t by trial and error

    That really depends on your definition of “works”. Sure, it’s a business, but what’s the goal? To me there seems to be a noticeable difference between companies that want to make good games, for which the business side of things is just a means to an end, and companies that want to make as much money as possible, where the games are the means to that end. Is that latter category ‘evil’? Maybe not strictly speaking, but I have no concern for those companies whatsoever, they can go fuck themselves.

    Landrin201,
    @Landrin201@lemmy.ml avatar

    Movies and books exist and they are one time purchases that you use once and stop interacting with. Why do games get special excuses for being extremely exploitative and shitty to their players? I don’t have to pay for a book chapter by chapter or pay extra for a character to appear, but authors and filmmakers still make TONS of money.

    The game industry makes lots of excuses for it’s shitty behavior but none of them hold water.

    AbsolutelyNotABot,

    but authors and filmmakers still make TONS of money.

    This is an affirmation many writers would find offensive lol

    The editorial sector is in deep crisis, it’s really hard to live off as a writer unless you’re ridiculously famous.

    Same thing for the filmmaking industry, look at protest of screenwriters and actors, and to companies terrible financial sheets, and to movie theaters basically bankrupting as maybe their time is over. Also we both agree there’s been a shift from movies to tv series and one of the reason is that you “buy the product piece by piece”?

    Ps: funnily enough, period publication of chapters were a thing until not long ago, and still are in somewhere (for example manga in Japan)

    Euphoma,

    Webnovel sites in Korea and China sell books one chapter at a time, and some of their publishers are trying to break into the Western market with the same structure (ie Wattpad bought by naver, Webnovel.com owned by Qidian). They also like using virtual currency for buying chapters. Korean and Chinese web comics are also sold this way. Publishers really like the microtransaction money no matter the industry. If they could figure out how to sell microtransactions for movies I bet they would do it.

    Side note: I downloaded this chinese app for downloading region locked games on mobile and they somehow figured out how to put gacha in it. Publishers seem to do anything for money no matter how little sense it makes.

    erwan,

    The movies industry is no better, they too try to get as much money as possible and they do for example with product placement.

    If they could find a way to make you pay a few bucks more to see the protagonist on a unicorn instead of a horse you can bet they would.

    whatisallthis,

    Fun fact: In literally every single analogy that has ever and will ever exist, you can add things to it to make it even more analogous.

    MagicShel,

    What can we add to fun facts to make them even more fun? 🤔

    NightOwl,

    Lot of us have already heard most company justifications for the anti consumer moves they make. That is no new revelation.

    UlrikHD,
    @UlrikHD@programming.dev avatar

    Witcher 3, the Last of Us (ps3), Baldurs Gate 3, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Elden Ring, Read Dead Redemption 2 (offline), Zelda, etc…

    There are plenty of triple A games that were well received that didn’t involve gambling and mtx.

    NightOwl,

    Ones that weren’t well received like Cyberpunk 2077 did well too.

    Sina,

    Because they largely fixed it…

    whatisallthis,

    I don’t care how they were received. Give me a total revenue comparison.

    Nacktmull,

    You simply listed exceptions, thus proving the rule stated by @whatisallthis

    UlrikHD,
    @UlrikHD@programming.dev avatar

    How many exceptions do you need before it no longer being an exception, 50%?

    Nacktmull,

    But you listed less than 1 percent?

    UlrikHD,
    @UlrikHD@programming.dev avatar

    Sorry for not combing through every major release since tetris and making a perfectly objective list of every good game of which most them I’ve never even seen gameplay of.

    Nacktmull,

    Why so salty bro? Maybe go outside, meet some people. That usually helps me when I´m grumpy …

    UlrikHD,
    @UlrikHD@programming.dev avatar

    Salty? I listed a bunch of games that are clearly made by passionate developers and have been part of defining of defining the space in recent history. You are the one leaving a snarky comment that I listed less than 1 percent of games as if that proves anything.

    Nacktmull,

    We probably just did not understand each other well. Can we just agree to disagree and move on? I respect you and your opinion, have a nice day!

    style99, do gaming w The Main Lesson From ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Should Be ‘People Hate Microtransactions’
    @style99@kbin.social avatar

    Too bad game devs don't care. They make more farming rich morons using micros and FOMO than they could dream of making, otherwise.

    Poob,

    Hey, don’t blame us poor devs for the decisions that get forced upon us

    JonEFive,

    Hot take: mtx are a good thing as long as they don’t cause a significant imbalance in gameplay. There’s a reason the price of a AAA game has remained roughly $60 for nearly two decades in spite of increasing development costs and inflation.

    People who purchase in game add-ons subsidize those who don’t.

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