I love what I’m seeing but I’m too blind to use a handheld. I’ve been gaming for 44 years and I’ll probably never get to experience it, at least not well. Still glad to see it though!
Was EA even doing anything with any of the actually good IPs they had? I haven’t heard of anything particularly interesting coming from them in a while now (ie. decades).
I mean, they published Split Fiction and Tales of Kenzera this year and their Star Wars games were more than decent (let's hear it for the atrociously underrated X-Wing revival they made with Squadrons). They also published the C&C Remaster that same year, which I feel doesn't get enough credit despite getting a lot of credit. Probably one of the best examples of one of those in recent memory.
Let's not be disingenuous, none of that is their bread and butter, but it's not like they were entirely dormant.
It's been EA since a different millenium. I think it's time to get over it.
FWIW, the remake itself was made by an external studio including members of the original team and they apparently collaborated closely with some sort of consulting group of modders and preservation-focused community people.
Well, yeah, but those principles don't typically relate to videogame companies nor to purchase habits regarding 30 year old videogames.
Voting with your wallet is ultracapitalist, self-serving non-activism people deploy performatively to make themselves feel better about stuff they don't care that much about, not "principles". No offense.
Jokes on all of you, it’s actually just a Steam branded digital picture frame that cycles through the cover art of games from your library that you’ve never played to constantly remind you of the money you waste.
Unity’s recent fuck up is a massive boon for them, I really hope they can capitalize on it. This is one of those moments that only happens once, if they push their development and marketing over the next 12 to 18 months they can snag a really significant share of the market and use it to vault themselves to the next go-to engine.
I’m so sick of hearing about AI. I’ve been struggling with the concept that “authenticity” seems to be completely irrelevant to a lot of people lately. I’m a developer and have been for 10+ years at this point, and am struggling to understand why I would stay in this field.
When I get down, I start to question if there’s any point in learning anything. I started up a side project with somebody I respected in a niche hobby space and have been using that to learn a new framework, but I’m rapidly feeling like it’s pointless to bother learning when you can badly cobble something together with a chatbot and the managers of the world will ejaculate themselves dry about how good robots are, even when the bloody thing barely functions.
It seems that a lot of people don’t give a shit if something is actually made by humans. Those same people don’t seem to value the hard work it takes to make something. I feel like I’m having a hard time fitting in at the moment.
So far I’ve been impressed with what AI can do with coding. I had it write some scripts for me on one of my previous work tasks and it did the majority of the code writing and even majorly assisted the debug process.
And now I’m using it for another task and it’s already improved significantly since the last one. You can now interrupt it if if gets stuck in some kind of loop and the required debug phases are fewer. Hell, it’s even reading between the lines of my prompts effectively and implemented a verbosity feature in a second script just because I had requested it in the first one.
With the first task, I was holding its hand as far as data structures and such were concerned. This time, I’m instructing it at a higher level. And while it does help that I can understand the code it generates, I said last time that it was good enough to start replacing interns, I think at this point it’s ready to start replacing junior programming positions.
I struggle with similar feelings, although in other disciplines. I’m going to ask you the same questions I ask myself because they help center me when I’m in a similar mental space.
Who do you create for? Do you create for those people that don’t value your work? Do you create for yourself, for your own satisfaction? Do you create for external recognition?
I think we’ll turn this corner as a society, especially as everything becomes further enshittified. Inherent value and authenticity, the process and the work are all things that I do believe we all care about, but we’ve been spoiled with the convenience of everything.
I’m rapidly feeling like it’s pointless to bother learning when you can badly cobble something together with a chatbot and the managers of the world will ejaculate themselves dry about how good robots are, even when the bloody thing barely functions.
Rhetorical question: How much of your decade of development has been in a professional capacity
That has ALWAYS been true. A barely functioning Proof Of Concept has always been sexy. Someone has an idea, they make a barely functioning example of it working (often depending on stack overflow and asking others for help), show it to Management, and get money. With Management often thinking how they can either rapidly patent something in there or sell it off to a larger company.
Nothing there is new aside from “AI” replacing “ask Stack Overflow”.
And, just to be clear, that was also true in the hobbyist space. Think about how often you saw an article like “someone recreated PT in Unreal Engine!!!” (not to mention PT itself being the kind of project you give a new hire to learn the toolchain but…). Same with all those emulators that “added VR” and so forth. They are cool concepts that tend to not go anywhere or…
Once a POC becomes a Product? That is where knowledge matters. You no longer want the answer someone shat out while waiting for a belle claire video to download. You need to actually define your corner cases, improve performance, and build out a roadmap.
And… that ALSO isn’t about learning new tools and tech. A lot of that comes out of it, but that is where the difference between “computer programmer” and "software engineer’ comes into play. Because it becomes an engineering problem where you define and implement testing frameworks and build out the gitlab issues and so forth.
Like, a LOT of dumbfucks try to speedrun their way to management because it is more money. But the reality is that a good Engineer SHOULD become a manager as they “grow up”. Because you need people with technical ability to have a say in building out that roadmap and in allocating resources to different issues. Optimally you still get to code a lot (I am a huge fan of middle management in that regard) but… yeah.
I see what you’re saying, but I’m not talking about proof of concepts. I’m talking about “fully fledged” Frankenstein apps that get cobbled together by cowboys. Documentation written by ChatGPT that is full of hallucinations. Managers love that stuff because the thing they’ve asked for works but nothing outside of that one thing works, which doesn’t matter because they’re not testing it.
I’m not talking about small proof of concepts. I was referring to myself in a professional capacity as a developer; I’ve been a web developer full time since 2015.
Managers love that stuff because the thing they’ve asked for works but nothing outside of that one thing works, which doesn’t matter because they’re not testing it.
Yeah. That is a POC. It is what you use to get funding, have lawyers write up a patent, or shop around the company
That is not what I’m saying - the situation I’m describing is the situation I’m currently in: I work for a small web agency, we have the agency owner, the project manager, and the development lead as our “management”.
A client asks for something, the agency owner says yes, and then the development lead cobbles something together over the course of a few hours with results from ChatGPT or Claude.
The thing works, but only for that specific request and cannot handle edge cases, and he doesn’t know how it works nor how to extend it, so he cobbles on more ChatGPT or Claude results.
The management team love it, but it’s just mountains of technical debt piling up.
A client asks for something, the agency owner says yes, and then the development lead cobbles something together over the course of a few hours with results from ChatGPT or Claude.
Again… that is a POC.
The thing works, but only for that specific request and cannot handle edge cases, and he doesn’t know how it works nor how to extend it, so he cobbles on more ChatGPT or Claude results.
So… what you are saying is they make something specifically meeting the requirements given to them by the client with no intention of long term support? And that, in the event that you provide long term support, the skillset required drastically changes? Possibly to a more Software Engineering based one?
It’s not a proof of concept, or an MVP - I’m saying it’s what is given to the client as a full, finished solution.
What I’m saying is that the “this was built by AI!” effect is so strong that copy/pasting ChatGPT results together with no forethought or understanding is miserable and brings only technical debt - but that that’s irrelevant to management, because they’re impressed by the robot and don’t want to “fall behind” other agencies.
Jennifer’s body, American horror story, true blood, shooter, the Martian, demolition man, blade, first blood, commando, oldboyz, war games, Terminator 2, xeon: girl of the 21st century, the devil wears Prada, the witch, new dracula movie, gone in 60 seconds, underworld, ghost dog, lone wolf and cub, wensday, the sandman, maybe some others, if I have time later to think of them.
My answer to you is that I fully expect the ability to do stuff yourself to be seen as extremely valuable in about 2 or 3 years. This whole AI thing is pretty definitely a bubble, and on top of that it also looks to me like the blockchain and metaverse tech-fads, and I strongly believe that when the bubble bursts people that can say “I spent all that time learning to do things myself rather than rely on ai to do my thinking for me” are going to be the only people with careers.
Honestly wild they would close Tango, of all developers, after they delivered maybe Xbox’s only coveted exclusive (though it has since gone multi-platform). Redfall and Starfield were both duds, and I’m not sure if Xbox has had any other exclusives at all (coveted or otherwise).
Having said that, it’s pretty bad that Xbox is closing these studios regardless of if they have put out a hit recently or not. As Arkane Lyon chief Dinga Bakaba points out:
You say we make you proud when we make a good game. Make us proud when times are tough. We know you can, we seen it before.
Microsoft certainly has the money that they don’t need to be making these cuts. This is clearly the result of Line-Go-Up syndrome, and will only hurt them in the long run.
PlayStation is already eating Xbox’s lunch since Xbox has no console selling exclusives. How are they going to make any good exclusives after cutting so much of their staff? (Also as a side note, I find it wild how much Microsoft spent on Bethesda just to cut so many of those studios.)
Overall, a cruel and short-sighted move from Microsoft.
Overall, a cruel and short-sighted move from Microsoft
That depends on who and how many they decide to merge into other developer teams and who is let go.
I mean, I doubt most MS higher-ups would know talent if you threw it at them. But whenever there’s big acquisitions, there’s gonna be some house cleaning. So who gets to stay (if they want to) is likely down to last things they have produced.
Redfalls team is done for sure. But Tango Works I don’t know… I can imagine overseas based companies are a more tricky beast to handle. So that’s probably down to some cost/benefit analysis if they go or stay.
which is wild, because there's clearly a lot of talent there that was just spunked up the wall trying to create a game that any idiot could see right from the outset was conceptually awful
There’s a statement on this ign article that says arkane Austin will have devs go to other studios, but nothing on the tango front. They’re just closing it.
(Also as a side note, I find it wild how much Microsoft spent on Bethesda just to cut so many of those studios.)
It’s easy to understand when you realize that purchase wasn’t about talent, it was about IP.
Now sure, closing these studios and preventing the development of new exclusives is leading to Sony eating their lunch now, but longer/very short term it leads to them developing exclusives with their IP at a cheaper cost. It’s just all about cost cutting to make pretty line go up.
Microsoft has certainly made games based off IP they owned without the original developers. But the only examples of that I can think of is Halo, which I don’t think was highly regarded.
Similarly (though not at Microsoft), when Shu Takumi took a break from the Ace Attorney franchise to do Ghost Trick, the quality of the franchise was widely regarded to have a dip as well (though now he has returned for the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, the quality is considered to have returned). Ghost Trick was considered to be a very high quality game as well.
While IP is valuable; as an outsider to the industry, the skilled game devs seemed infinitely more bankable. I was certain that Microsoft wanted Bethesda for its quality devs, but clearly I was wrong.
You don’t sack the team responsible for your best regarded game in years, if you’re concerned with making good games.
You’re probably right. Microsoft is probably not worried about the quality. People will still buy their favorite IP, even with a notable quality dip
this is opening up patents, so yes, in a world like ours having something be patented, but royalty free and anyone can use is much better than the alternative. which is either one company owning it and licencing it. or a patent troll getting it and making it even worse.
the sarcasm in this case, is not warranted. this is a good thing.
That’s literally not a thing. Once something is publicly disclosed it can’t be patented (unless it is by the discloser during the one year grace period). You can’t take someone else’s invention and patent it. If someone does you can invalidate their patent without even a lawyer. If you want something you invent to be free for everyone the best thing you can do is get it out into the world and not patent it.
You’re not supposed to. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
Nobody wants to spend the court costs to get a patent troll stripped of their bad patent. And for a patent troll you’re going to need a lawyer, they’re going to fight tooth and nail to keep it since that’s their source of income.
Once again, this is not true. They do what is called a prior art search as part of issuing a patent. They look worldwide for anything that could be considered your invention before your filing date before issuing a patent. Even after a patent is issued, if prior art is presented to the patent office they can rescind the patent. It’s a form and like $100. You don’t need a lawyer to bring prior art to the patent office’s attention. The legal battle will be between the patent office and the patent troll if they are trying to contest the prior art.
What? There was no polio vaccine patent. The inventor literally did exactly what I suggested. He made his work freely available so that it could not be patented. Volvo made a business decision to make their patent freely usable and we are still talking about it. Their brand has been permanently associated with safety because of it.
Notice how they tried to patent it “to prevent companies from making unlicensed, low-quality versions of the vaccine. There is no sign that the foundation intended to profit from a patent on the polio vaccine.”
…leaving the idea unclaimed for someone else to patent instead? Strange take.
The patent system is far from perfect, but patents themselves are necessary. EA had an idea, they had the right to patent it. They had the right to keep the patent closed, instead they opted to open it.
Doesn’t “opening up patents” means that anyone can use the ideas behind the patent without charge? Which means that it’s actually not locked anymore, so yes it does help?
Oof. Wasn’t this the one that was going to have in-depth object customization? I was looking forward to it from a dollhouse-building perspective. Even if it wasn’t great, having some competition might convince EA to allocate more dev resources to the Sims, which has ruthlessly embraced the “minimum viable product” philosophy for a long time.
Well HECK! I have been advertising this game to every gamer I know, finally a Sims game that’s not EA… :( I was very hopeful when they delayed without a new date, just take your time and get it right. Dang, I was really looking forward to this
They sell you a product at a fair price without putting it behind a loot box, unless I missed something. I don’t think that makes Paradox “just as bad” because they make a lot of DLC that you could choose to not purchase.
Until the next one is an always online live service that means it has an expiration date built into it by design, and that’s not even conjecture; we already know this.
Cities Skylines 2 launch is worse than any EA launch I can remember. Even that sense of accomplishment horseshite. They released a paid DLC 5 months after launch while not dealing with core functionality bugs.
I’m going to rate “exploits addiction to make billions off of legalized gambling for children” as worse than putting out a sub par, broken sequel with DLC 5 months after release.
In a hilariously circular way, EA has this beat still.
The Simcity 2013 launch was so terrible it killed Simcity and the studio Maxis, basically paving the way for City Skylines to take over the genre 2 years later.
It was online only, to the point where if you disconnected from the Internet you were booted out of the game. It also did most game rendering server side to force multiplayer/anti piracy/EA Origin store, and they only had enough infastructure for 1/10th of their player base on launch. That 10% isn’t exaggeration, either. They underestimated server load by 90%.
It was also a severely buggy, local resource hog somehow, even with being mostly remotely rendered. Since only a tiny fraction of the servers needed for the game were online, the game just chocked itself to death.
It took months to get it to a “working” state, at which point people had discovered all the insane and dumb behavior by ingame actors like citizens just picking a random house to go to end of day/etc. The tiny city limit size caused by being always online was also a very sore point for players, as you could barely build anything in a city building game. You could finish buillding your “city” in just a few hours, at which point you had to buy another “zone” that was separate from your current one. They didmt seamlessly connect like old SimCity or city skylines, you actually entered another tiny city slice to build on. It was terrible, and the size limit was clearly one of the measures to reduce server costs, as each zone looked like it was a new small server instance.
By the time they actually resolved the server issues, the game was dead, ending a 20+ year legacy in gaming for the brand and the studio. EA hasent made a simcity game in 11 years because of its failure. It was a shitshow and a half.
They sell you 15 minor features for $10 each and then every tutorial/gameplay video you watch has 5-10 features you’ve never seen before. It fills you with fomo and when you do cave you end up spending $80 to make a $40 game slightly more interesting. It’s predatory as fuck, paradox can go fuck themselves.
What am I fearing that I’m missing out on when there are 62 DLCs for Cities: Skylines but I only wanted 3 of them? I wanted Green Cities, After Dark, and Mass Transit, but I really couldn’t care less about Airports. Why does this FOMO apply only to DLC and not the entire library of video games out there that you can opt to buy or not? I really don’t understand it. If you buy one Paradox game, do you have to buy every Paradox game or else miss out on having the entire library? I hope that this doesn’t come off as me being hostile. I just genuinely don’t understand it. Latching on to gambling addiction in EA’s Ultimate Team DLC is a concept that I can easily understand how it’s predatory. Making a bunch of other products that you may not want to buy does not strike me as predatory but as casting a wide net to make the right content for the right customer.
Just because you’re able to spend $60 on 3 DLCs instead of whatever the 62 DLCs cost, doesn’t mean those DLC are worth what you’re spending. I can buy a single banana instead of the full bunch if I want but if they cost $10 each I’m not getting a good deal.
The fomo is because I’ve already invested in the base game. I can ignore content about games I haven’t bought yet but if I want to watch tutorial videos that have every DLC I have to filter out all the content I haven’t paid for. I can’t engage with the community on equal footing unless I spent 4-5x the price of the base game on overpriced content. That is not an enjoyable experience and has left me with a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to Paradox games. I don’t want to navigate the cesspool that is their monetization strategy so I simply don’t buy their games (I pirate them :^) ).
Well, first I’d say that those three DLCs cost a maximum of $45 and not $60, if they were MSRP, with current MSRP being a little less than that, but I don’t know if they ever got a price cut. Second, Steam sales happen like clockwork, for DLC as well, and there’s no way I spent $45. Third, the right feature to the right person might be worth that price, and that’s the benefit of their model. Over the course of so many years, they can keep working on the game and add niche features, some of which might be up your alley, rather than putting out a base game that lacks features important to you and never expanding the game.
I’m not sure why the tutorials for features you don’t have are a problem, because then you wouldn’t be doing the things they’re doing anyway, but I’m sorry that ruined the experience for you. It’s really hard for me to call that a cesspool though. They just put out a lot of product where you can decide what’s important to you, and I’d say that’s exactly what it ought to be.
Realistically, at least for Stellaris, Paradox updates the game for free for everyone that breaks everyone’s in-progress games and breaks key features of the game by fundamentally changing how the mechanics work. Then they sell the DLC that is absolutely necessary to fix whatever they broke for people who don’t own the DLC.
Paradox creates the problem and then sells the solution.
Ck3 with the plague mechanics does this. The base game has some default settings that absolutely wrecks everything once plagues get going and only having the DLC can change those settings.
I only played Stellaris off and on, but I went years without buying an expansion and always thought the new systems were complete and better than what they replaced when I returned. Breaking current saves is frustrating, so I guess you would need to delay an update if you had one you planned on returning to.
If you didn’t know, you can roll back to older versions of steam games with some work. A few games have a built-in system, but most of the tile you have to manually replace files after redownloading the old versions.
Yeah. Pdx went the same shit route as EA by now, even have subscriptions too. Doesn't matter if I have to through hundreds of bucks at EA or Pdx for a single game. It's both the same shitty principle.
Yeah, but having the games in competition would force then to try to win players to their side over the alternative, for both of the games. It would have been nice to have an option when playing this genre.
Yeah before all this if you told me “MasterCard is selling incest and rape games!” I would have said no, Steam is doing that. But now I feel like they want to have a heavier hand.
Ultimately I think it’s pressure from the Trump admin/project 2025 on companies to eventually make porn illegal
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