Nintendo has IP lawyers. They have to, at their scale, because they will constantly be bombarded by patent trolls, licensing companies etc. trying to extract profit out of Nintendo. So, like any other large business, they hire IP lawyers to protect themselves.
Most patent disagreements are resolved by cross-licensing. That’s where one business says, in response to a law suit, “oh, but you’re actually using 6 of our patents, so maybe we can come to an agreement”. A patent is both a shield and a sword. Even against trolls they can be useful, as they can be used to argue against troll arguments, if it gets to court, or pull in other business to the defense, if helpful.
IP lawyers know this. So they extract every patent they can out of everything a company does, as a way to build up the IP bank.
So, I highly doubt “Nintendo wants to prevent others” bla bla. It’s just IP lawyers doing their job.
I’ve sat in MANY discovery sessions with IP lawyers where they push and prod at software I, or my team, have written. “So, what you’ve effectively done is written a unique data structure to connect elements in memory?!”, “no, it’s a linked list, next question please”.
Last time I have heard about a L4D co-creator making another co-op game, we got Back 4 Blood which I got beta for and which sucked some major ass and eventually died in less than 2 years after release. So, no. I am not hyped and nobody should until they actually show a good game. Glad my beta was free. Didn’t had to pay for this crap to figure out it is crap.
It feels like so many devs and studios have been trying to bring back the magic of that era but L4D was such a product of the times. Hard to imagine any similar games in that vein succeeding today.
I don’t know about that. If Valve made Left 4 Dead 3 with some minor iterative improvements (better graphics, same gameplay, maybe a new mode) and no trash monetisation (B2P like the first two games), I think it would be very successful.
I’d say Deep Rock Galactic has a lot of the same appeal, and thas doing pretty well. Though it also made the bold and controversial decision of actually innovating and creating something new, rather than sticking as close to the original as possible.
You can’t be out of the game this long and think you’re going to make another left 4 dead. We saw that with back 4 blood and we will see it with this one.
As a hardcore fan of L4D, I just found it hilarious that I had to google for the name of their spiritual successor to L4D and that game before Back 4 Blood where you have 4 teammates hunt or be hunted by 1 big monster. Both are unmemorable abandonware games while L4D2 (also is kind of an abandonware) somehow is still played and is almost old enough to drink. Fucking timeless classic, I may say.
I love l4d2 and when i saw b4b on sale for $5 I was so excited. Surely I can get $5 of value of out this game. Nope after playing the first level everything was off with the game and I refunded it.
I instantly disliked the shooting and quickly grew to hate all the colourful effects they added. None of the effects fit the style of the game.
Not a huge fan of multiplayer games, but can be fun with friends.
As for people who don’t like live service games, Sony has mentioned multiple times that the budget for live service games is completely separate from single player games. The issue was that they previously put their good single player studios to making these games, as long as they get proper third party or specialised studios for these and leave their first party studios for first party, I am happy.
Dead within 2 years. They also had the balance pretty fucked until about 6 months in. All in all, no one should expect much from the company who makes games “built from the ground up with paid DLC in mind.”
They‘ve been so successful with singleplayer stuff but would somehow rather burn billions failing live services than sticking with them. They could‘ve put that money into several offline experiences and made at least SOME money but yeah, rather lose MOUNTAINS of money, I guess.
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