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”.
Early access doesn’t really work for me. I’ll pick it up, play at half-baked game until I run out of content, then never touch it again. I’m sure Valheim and 7 Days to Die are really good now, but my initial pass wasn’t good enough for me to ever say “Ah, let’s spend more time on another playthrough!”
Valheim hasn’t really changed much at all since it got super popular. It’s added some stuff, sure. But not a lot. And it is still horribly balanced and all over the place with what it wants to be.
I was happy when they had a free weekend of No Rest For The Wicked. My wife and I are always looking for good co-op games. This one wasn’t for us. It was almost fun, but not quite. Definitely glad we didn’t shell out for the early access.
Early Access works when you have a clear and concise roadmap in where you want a game to go.
It becomes a grifting operation when you have a game that has no direction. 7 Days to Die comes to mind. That game spent so many years in early access, I don't think it even left alpha stages. The developers basically went "yeaaaaaahhhh it's been a while, we got their money, so we're gonna release it". I truly don't think the developers really knew what to do with that game because every update they made, they'd take away something that was a good idea, next update, re-tool it, next update, fuck with something else.
While 7 days was tumultous at best, they’ve reached a pretty good point by now.
I do agree with you though, that having a proper direction and being clear about that direction to your fanbase makes for a much better early access period.
Like The Culling which completely ruined their own game because the devs thought they should move in one direction, but their fans and players thought the plan was completely different, having bought the game with a completely different direction in mind.
In the end though, having played quite a few good early access games, releasing a game in early access by Larian is fucking cheap. They have plenty money to make a full release without the early access injection. I see no reason why a succesfull studio like them would need it. Early access is fine for smaller devs. For some it could mean the difference between a hobby project and a full time job.
Early access can be great. DayZ spent years in early access and was at the time an incredibly fun janky experience that myself and a lot of other players have fond, chaotic memories of. It’s neat to see how far it came, and the game that exists today wouldn’t be here without that process. Those memories of exploding legs and invisible zombies are worth something.
If you absolutely must have a finished game when you spend money, don’t pay for early access. Nobody’s forcing it on you. But for those who like the look of a project and want to help get it off the ground while also getting to participate in its early stages, it can be rewarding.
And yeah, there are going to be games that flop in early access, but there are also plenty of games that flop on official release. I’d take some unique and interesting jank over something polished but boring and uninspired any day.
It honestly turned out great, it just took a while. The clients and servers both run pretty smoothly these days and the modding potential is crazy. Hands down the best game for voice RP just because of how expressive the body language is.
It would be nice if players caught on and ditched every avenue of playing unfinished games. Redemption arcs are pathetic. Again players let these companies off the hook.
Neither of these are redemption arcs where a company was let off the hook. They’re using early access the way it’s intended. The biggest thing stopping me from playing early access games is the deluge of finished games coming out all the time.
Hmm… this is a little too extreme, I think. Some niche indies need to start making money quick to keep going. Some are solo developers, and risk burn out working on a project for years without seeing any reward.
Accountability is necessary, but a total boycott of anything early access doesn’t come without negative consequences. Moderation is key, I think.
Also, this is a fringe case, and I keep bringing this up here but I have to because it’s often overlooked: some genres can’t afford to pick because they’re so niche. We got only 2 finished proper action games last year: Ninja Gaiden 4 and Lost Soul Aside, everything else is in early access. I can’t fault the consumer for picking up Genokids or Spirit X Strike because there isn’t many new options on the market.
Ah it’s a <make up weird quotes that don’t reflect the general feedback and then react to that> episode. I too remember people in the street shouting “you never should’ve tried something new BioWare!” after making that memory up.
In truth the biggest criticism they got was when they released it unfinished, promised a bunch of content and then let it die because they smashed the numbers into a calculator and came to the conclusion it’ll not be worth it. No fucking shit. Fixing the mess you sold people for full price won’t make you a lot of profit, it’s something you do to make up for delivering unfinished crap in the first place.
Imagine a plumber who does pipe work in your house and when you call them because they did a shoddy job and it’s leaking they say “Nah, wouldn’t be worth it to fix this. I’ll rather go do a different project for more money.”
To Bioware’s credit, Anthem was a completely different game 18 months before release and EA came in and forced an entirely new concept, story and title on them.
I would be at least curious to see what Bioware would have done with the IP without EA flipping the table on them.
Probably more floundering. An EA exec told them at one point that their demo was crap (and based on word from other devs, he was probably right), so they reintroduced flight, which IMO was one of the best aspects of the game. EA didn’t force a new story or concept on Bioware, though. All that was Bioware’s own fault between lack of leadership and staff burnout.
I remember watching an interview of one of the developers of DA2 and I could tell that he had no idea what people liked in video games. It killed my interest.
I mean, the first one was good. It was all downhill from there, sadly. The second was decent, but suffered from a ton of re-used assets and a dumbed-down combat system. By the third, it seemed like they were trying to make a single-player MMO, which just made no damned sense to me. Never played the 4th. Maybe I’ll get it for free at some point and check it out.
I’d imagine these comments are being made as a some thought experiment kinda deal. I play tested one of their concepts for Anthem Next. It was unremarkable, and the majority of the session was them trying to narrow down why people played Destiny. It was obvious what audience they wanted. The guy running it was visibly annoyed that my looter shooter of choice at the time was The Division.
It wasn’t going to be anything without a lot more work. The flying was nice. Everything else was still painfully generic. There’s a reason it got canned.
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