Eh, skill up had a great take on this. The thing is it’s wayyyyy easier to be a small indie developer than it ever was before. Making a game (or any art) still isn’t easy, it never was and never will be, but it’s viable without a giant publisher in a way it just hasn’t been before.
Its the AA titles that are on the most precarious footing, but I bet even those do ok. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy some AAA stuff time to time, I’ve got a stupid amount of hours in overwatch, but I’ve never once paid for a skin because… why would you?
The thing that’s going to suck is losing the studios like Arkane. Their games weren’t perfect but they were freaking cool, and they basically always got the raw end of the deal. Even Prey(2016), their masterpiece, is the product of corporate bullshitiery they had nothing to do with. So we’re probably going to miss studios like that for a while (as they get re-tasked to fortnite/cod support teams) but “indie” stuff has already been stepping up to fill that void, and is less indie all the time.
Look at Dave the Diver. That’s not exactly an indie studio. They had resources. There’s going to be a gap for a bit, but there’s still a demand for good games and art. Those AA breakthroughs are what people want. Again, I continue to spend dumb amounts of time on overwatch, but it’s not where I spend my money. Microsoft hovelled themselves by buying all these studios and not taking the leap with supporting them. Distribution just doesn’t have the value it once did. So if microsoft wants to become CandyCrush, feeding an addiction loop to grab the whales, sure, whatever, but there’s plenty of bread out there for studios doing other stuff.
The one and only point that I disagree with you on is your take on mtx. They may not affect you, but everything about them is designed to be psychologically exploitative, and the wealthy whale is largely a myth. The vast majority of money from mtx is made from people with addiction issues and other mental health issues or atypical neurology, like people with depression or ADHD.
Microsoft bought up all those studios and didn’t support them, but that’s business as usual for Microsoft, and the money that they’ll make from mtx like this will more than make up for it. I recently watched a former Blizzard dev who was talking about how a single $15 mount for WoW made more money than StarCraft 2 did.
The big issue I see is that most people largely don’t know about anything beyond the big AAA releases, and as we’ve already established, that’s an exploitative wasteland nowadays. There’s plenty of demand for good games and there always will be, but while the indie scene is the best that’s it’s ever been, the majority of indie companies go under after their first game. It’s still hard out there for them, too. There’s just enough of them popping up and putting out truly great games that they can actually compete with the AAA space.
It was Thor from pirate software on Twitch talking about the mtx beating SC2 for folks who care great guy to watch if you want to chill and hear some good life advise.
oh yeah, I didn’t want to be dismissive of the mtx stuff. It’s absolutely predatory and awful, but I don’t think it fully stands in the way of developing good games.
Which is related to what you’re saying about indies going under even after success. Game development takes time, and you need money to underwrite that time. I just think there’s going to be a split; right now AAA studios are shitifying their games, turning them more into CandyCrush skinner boxes. But the demand for good games hasn’t gone away, there’s just less financial upside than making CandyCrush. My point is, even though it’s less money, there’s still a good amount of money to be had there. Eventually the gaps going to be filled. Microsoft cant fill it because on the balance sheet, things like COD and anything from King are where they should be focused. And it sucks right now because they sucked up a stupid amount of talent and thanos snapped them, but thats not a sustainable practice.
But yes, it’s going to be painful. It’ll suck seeing really nifty indie stuff have to struggle so hard. Like I said I’m also going to miss the polish that comes with AA stuff. I’m going to miss the hell out of Arkane. Their games weren’t perfect, but they had so much soul. They didn’t deserve to have Redfall be their epitaph.
I kind of feel like anyone who spends $20 on a video game skin shouldn’t be allowed to make any financial decisions for themselves. Like, it was a test and you failed.
Except that shit is designed by literal psychologists to prey upon people with poor fiscal responsibility, like people with ADHD, depression, addiction issues, and kids.
It’s like blaming people for smoking cigarettes after they got addicted from secondhand smoking.
It’s fucked because there are people buying that shit, in numbers that turn a profit over the cost of developing it. And it’s a very low cost because the skin support is something they put in when they make the game, and then get an intern to shit out a gaudy skin.
If you don’t like it you’re obviously not the target demographic anymore. It’s mobile gaming tactics creeping their way on PC.
If its a single player focused with no (or very minimal) live service bullshit then great.
If not then well there’s bunch of indie or classic boomer shooters I’ve not yet tried that are just that.
Yeah I mostly agree with you. Except there was plot and lore in 2016, it was just minimalist as you said, but more importantly it was executed really well. It had the “doom” feel. In addition to awesome gameplay and soundtrack.
Eternal was great for the gameplay, and even an improvement in some ways. The lore and plot was ridiculous though. Way overdone, didn’t feel like doom.
I say go back to 2016 style with the gameplay improvements of eternal.
To me the essence of 2016 is the scene in the beginning where an info screen tries to dump exposition on you and you chuck it into a wall.
There is plot, but you don’t need to pay attention to it. Doomguy is angry and needs to kill demons.
To me a big fumble in Eternal was trying to explain why doomguy is angry and so good at killing. He’s like an inverse Cthulhu, terrifying, unknowable and mysterious. Trying to explain or understand him breaks the basis for the character.
On gameplay, I didn’t mind the changes, but I thought the embellishments were a little on the nose. The technicolor rainbow explosion of ammo when you chainsaw someone, and the increased focus on using abilities to replenish resources scream “This is a video game!” in a over the top way that I felt took away from the immersion and grit that I associate with Doom.
Agreed on all points. I tried getting into Eternal a couple times and still haven’t finished it. It’s more than likely a good game but it doesn’t have the flow of the first.
Yep, agree to agree here. I just thought the gameplay improvements in eternal were fun. But I agree the way you put it, kind of a departure from what doom should be.
I felt like the decision to make jumping and mobility more a factor in Eternal hurt it a lot. Jumping puzzles and jumping mechanics in FPS games don’t really work for a lot of reasons (see: Half-Life) and it made the levels feel much more linear than 2016, the arenas much more smaller and less mobile. id did invent this genre, and even they can’t make it work. What does that tell you?
Also the changing of the ammo metaelements to prioritize chainsawing felt dumb. Having to pinata every so often was the most obvious thing that felt straight up wrong compared to 2016, and that’s a sign of a garbage core loop.
The writing was pretty good, but I have the attention span of a summer ant when I play Doom.
Eternal actually made my hands hurt. Still haven’t gotten very far in it. Having to constantly cycle weapons, jump, dash, and do precision shooting, often all at the same time, was murder on my hands.
It may be but the engine team is mostly Ex-Crytek folks carrying over from Carmack’s work with OpenGL. Even the Raytracing support is just a Vulkan Extension. They could change gears.
I never thought the music in nu-Doom was all that great anyway. Not compared to classic Doom at least. E1M1 is forever stuck in my head and if you hum a couple bars to anyone who has played it, they’ll immediately know the tune.
The music in nu-Doom is fine while you’re playing, but I can’t remember a single track.
Probably not exactly what you’re looking for, but Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands was a great campaign that’s technically an FPS with a lot of RPG heaped on top.
Not exactly, but I have found a taste for loot games lately, so maybe someday I’ll get around to that one. It still wouldn’t scratch the same itch though.
Has Microsoft put out a single worthwhile AAA title in the entire console generation? I bought an Xbox Series X after the Bethesda acquisition and I’ve used it once to boot up Starfield and then quit after 15 minutes when I realized it was boring as hell.
They have this uncanny ability to spend more money on acquisitions and then completely stall the output from that company until every game blows.
They had one good franchise that they didn’t run into the ground, Halo. And after they got control of it they killed that too. They own half the industry now and I feel like they produce less games than ever before.
I feel like they’re going to get bored, kill their games division in 5 years and the whole industry will have to rebuild.
They’ve actually stated within the last year that they are in fact considering moving away from the games industry if certain things dont happen for them. This game out during the whole court proceedings surrounding their attempted Activision buyout.
I can’t remember the details and I’m too lazy to look into it again lol. There are some interesting articles out there tho
They want to be a cloud gaming provider and sell Xbox fire TV sticks instead of consoles, with controllers that connect directly to the azure server running their games. Why do you think Nvidia and the UK weren’t happy with Microsoft a few years ago and they made so many deals with cloud gaming providers like boosteroid and GeForce now?
Microsoft turned every Windows PC into an Xbox overnight with XCloud and they had little to no overhead costs. That’s where their business is right now, cloud and AI, not gaming, Xbox will take a backseat and I’m going to bet we will see them transition from a console maker to simply publisher that conveniently sells a cloud TV stick that can play games.
Ground Branch on PC has some of the best I’ve ever seen. NPCs will, for example, if shot in the neck, clutch their throat and dynamically transition into a ragdoll as their animations become more sloppy until they go completely limp. It’s actually kind of unsettling how brutal it is.
What’s sad is that this game is a low budget passion project made by former Rainbow Six devs (the OG R6 games), not a AAA game backed by a massive corperation.
I personally really like it. It’s rough around the edges, but IMO it does a good job of bringing back the feel of those old R6 games. Enemy AI is really good and you can customize their skill in a pretty granular manor (cones of vision, reaction times, full auto burst lengths, and much more, rather than just Easy, Medium and Hard). There’s a handful of nice levels each with a few types of missions, really nice weapon and gear customization, very snappy and authentic gunplay.
My biggest gripe is a lack of friendly AI. However, I believe this is planned, so it’s just a matter of time. It’s still a lot of fun lone wolf or co-op
gamespot.com
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