Arkane- I mean, yeah Redfall was a clunker but Dishonored, Deathloop, and Prey all did pretty well I thought… though I suppose the two Wolfenstein games they did were kinda trash so there is a bit of falloff between the “glory days” and now.
Tango- Hi-Fi Rush was a bop, and Ghostwire did well enough I thought. Not seeing a good reason here.
Alpha Dog - Mighty Doom? Okay thats a fair closure.
–
prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games
Chasing blockbusters is gonna fuck them up but I suppose more room in the lower weight classes isn’t bad for gamers since it lets indies and others who aren’t the big boys shine, and lord knows thats been wild over the past year’ish.
It is. Lots of “gamers” can’t be fucked learning the difference between Austin and arkane, it’s like how there’s people who think bioware Montreal is the same as Edmonton or rockstar north is the same as san Diego when north makes GTA and the other red dead. Generally gamers don’t care what studio does what just the first part of its name. Arkane Lyon are developing blade and that’s still in progress.
Arcane austin was already killed by the development of redfall. Most of the talent responsible for making dishonered and prey the games they were left during development of redfall. If arcane austin went back to making immersive sims instead of closing, it would be a new team making it, with little help from the pedegree implied by arcane’s legacy.
Keep in mind however that arcane was two studios, the main studio in lyon france, and the other in austin texas. Dishonered was developed jointly. Dishonored 2 was lyon, pray was austin, and deathloop was lyon.
The lyon studio still exists. They are continuing to make games. The only thing announced from arcane is the marvel’s blade game. Not optimistic, but arcane may still be around a while yet.
Meanwhile Larian studio reminding everyone that a good way to make money and avoid layoffs is to be nimble and make good games.
Big Corps sees nimble and good studio making a good game, starts layoffs immediately.
The real murderers are the people that sell their studio to a big publisher. They immediately seal the fate of their teams. They will have layoffs eventually…
I love Larian and am ride or die with Swen et al. Have been ever since Divine Divinity was “we have Diablo at home” but ended up being a shockingly good (for its time) hybrid ARPG/CRPG.
But Larian are very much not the example of “how to do business”. Like Digital Extremes, they are a “legacy” studio that is INCREDIBLY lucky to have survived. Larian themselves had to deal with really shitty publisher deals (Beyond Divinity and I think also Divinity 2?) and games so bad it almost killed the studio (even Mortismal himself will acknowledge that Divinity 2 was a trash fire before the DLC… and was still a mess after). It was mostly “lucking out” and embracing Kickstarter before everyone hated it that saved them. And… Dragon Commander still got close.
And you know what has REALLY made them stable? That’s right. A deal with a major company to work on one of the most famous IPs in gaming (tabletop and video) history.
Larian are smart to try to maintain their size and not overly grow. But, like countless game devs have said and gotten shouted down for, they are far from “typical” and got REALLY lucky. Hell, Swen himself has mentioned the same in between the blurbs that outlets love to reference.
You forgot to mention they sold 30% stake of the company to the world‘s largest game conglomerate Tencent. They‘re also working on a supposedly much larger game than BG3 now and plan to release it within the next 4 years which means they will have to at least double their staff. Honestly, judging a developer entirely by a recent success isn‘t a good practice even when it‘s as massive as BG3. Most people who talk about Larian have a very warped impression. Even when their games are great recently, the tides can change rapidly in this industry.
Yeah did someone just run or interpret reports incorrectly? If a person subscribes to Game Pass and plays Hi Fi Rush for X months, I’d consider that a sale.
If they play it exclusively, sure. But people play tons of games on Gamepass. HiFi Rush and a dozen other games splitting that $15/month/account is a lot less rosy.
I’ve had Gamepass since the beginning, and since it was launched it I’ve bought maybe 1 or 2 Xbox games that weren’t on gamepass, whereas I used to average 2-3 a month. My overall spending on games has dropped massively since getting gamepass - especially on Xbox.
Just the fact that they played some minimum amount should tell them the game contributed to the subscriber’s enjoyment of Game Pass. Otherwise if they are both selling a game and giving it to Game Pass subscribers for free I’m not sure what they are expecting. Can’t have your cake and eat it too, but I’m sure they would like that.
Maybe they are hoping that Game Pass is like extended demos and will lead to more game sales. But there are too many new games all the time for most to hold my interest.
I think they expected more casual gamers to sign up for game pass while the more dedicated among us would still be buying new products.
Honestly, they’d probably be doing better if they didn’t put games on there day 1. Sony doesn’t put their biggest titles on PS+ at launch for a reason.
Halo and starfield had shit sales because we didn’t have to buy them. If they required people to buy the triple-A in-house titles at launch, the double-A stuff like HiFi Rush could still be released on gamepass day 1 as an incentive for people to subscribe.
As it stands, Starfield and Forza burned the money that should be used for HiFi Rush and Ori.
Absolutely agree, just recently instead of buying Manor Lords I just found a good deal on a month of Game Pass. I played it as much as I wanted (for now) for less than $10.
Hmmm it’s almost like Jim Ryan was on to something when he said gamepass wasn’t good for the industry and publishers didn’t like it during the antitrust trial with Microsoft.
It blows my fucking mind how stupid some people are just to be able to play the next rehashed bullshit CoD on gamepass instead of paying $70 a year for the same garbage.
I am going to pretend you didn’t mean it this way but that REALLY comes across as telling people who lost their jobs that they deserve it because they didn’t meet your requirements (that weren’t even true back in the day of DOS and BBSes…)
Please… fuck right off with that. The devs at Arkane Austin or Tango aren’t making the decision to add a battlepass or to release a game before it is “done”. They are doing what management requires of them. The same management that then fires them to make sure that the overall branch of the company turns a profit.
I agree with your statement. However, what I believe the original comment was saying is that if the developers who have lost their jobs were to get together and make a game as they describe, then they would buy it. The malice was directed at Microsoft and so on.
Which is still a complete load of demonstrable bullshit.
Getting funding for a team is increasingly difficult. Plenty of studios have talked about the horrors of 2023-2024 and how nobody wants to fund even a small team. And this would not be “take it across the finish line” but a solid 3-6 years before even a chance at a return on investment because these devs wouldn’t even have IPs or past releases to leverage.
But also? Listen to folk like Xalavier Nelson Jr who talk about this. They are fighting the good fight to push back against financiers and publishers to make games “the right way” with monetization models that are what people ask for. And they still get shit on endlessly and ignored.
In a lot of ways, it reminds me of “abandonware” back in the day. For those who are too young, for the longest time it was nigh impossible to buy a game that was even five or six years old because it would not be on store shelves. GoG (back when they were Good Old Games) was specifically designed to update and sell these games. And without invasive DRM to boot.
And suddenly all the abandonware torrent sites just started uploading gog installers. And now we almost never hear the term “abandonware” because… people were always full of shit and just wanted to make an excuse to justify their own actions.
It is, in fact, not BS to be mad at a megacorp for cutting valuable and functioning assets, and the fact you do not understand that is hilariously pathetic.
If you’re aware of people and games that do fit, then whining about it and talking about how they get crapped on instead of how cool their sfuff is doesn’t help, either!
You seem to be more willing to paint things negatively than help improve, so why should we listen?
My issue is the people who use this as an excuse to blame the devs who are just doing their jobs while trying to live their dreams.
Again. There are studios out there who are doing exactly what everyone insists they want AND are doing so in ways that make getting funding difficult. And they get shit on because of a “hot take” on twitter or because their game isn’t as pretty as Call of Duty.
When large groups of people get laid off because of corporate bullshit? The answer is not to say “Hey, you should fucking do better next time”. It is “Fuck corporations” or “fuck capitalism”.
Cool but most indie devs don’t have the capital to fund the development. They want to make those games, but they have to partner with publishers so they can afford to buy stuff like food and rent while developing before they make any sales.
Most of the upper eschalon of 343 have left or were kicked out over the last year, including some of the worst offenders who drove the creation of the crap we've had recently such as Kiki Wolf kill.
It seems like they're internally rebuilding 343 because they know how much of a powerhouse that IP can be if done right. I'm not optimistic about the next Halo, but cautiously hopeful now at least.
I doubt it is even thoughts over how powerful Halo is as an IP. I would be shocked if MS corporate hadn’t realized that any 343 Halo is going to get shit on because “this isn’t Bungie”. And people hate 343 enough that firing them and pushing the leads out won’t raise any red flags.
But yeah. Look at how much damage control MS did when they were releasing fucking Pentiment on switch (look, I love that game with all my heart but you know things are fucked when people remember it exists). There is zero chance 343 “closes” until the next full generation… probably that gen’s refresh SKU consoles. Because it would instantly be interpreted as “xbox is dead”.
But gutting Bethesda? We already see people in this very thread talking about how it is good because they didn’t like a game one of the studios did.
It's possible people won't accept a new game just because of the name attached, but that's not what I'm seeing.
I still play Infinite pretty heavily and most of the people I chat with there are saying the same, thank the lord leadership changed, let's give it a year or two and see.
If halo infinite had been a well balanced Battle Royale game… I’d probably have thrown away everything I love due to overplaying a damn game.
I’m just so sick of multiplayer shooters. The repetition didn’t seem so bad when I was young, but now it just numbs my brain.
But BR is the perfect combo of “my squad vs the world” that you get in a PVE coop, but also the rush of beating real life opponents that makes you keep coming back.
Warzone is all my friends play now, but it’s gotten so stale that no one really pushes to squad up too frequently.
Halo infinite multiplayer is free. The forge community has created a battle royale mode I've heard. Maybe give it a shot? I don't know anything other than it exists.
I personally can't stand battle royale games, so sorry, but I hope the next isn't. It's just not what Halo is. If they released a mode, or a side game as a Battle Royale I'm all for it, but not a full main game.
I feel the burnout though. My normal gaming friends and I are in a mode of trying new games right now and don't play together as much.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Am I the only one that felt Hi-fi Rush was a disappointment? I played plenty of rhythm games and Hi-fi Rush just felt off throughout, landing beats didn’t feel satisfying and it felt off sync at timee. The story was well I can see people liking it but it felt too Disney-ish and cringe for me. I couldn’t get past playing it after the 2nd level.
It’s an interesting concept but I can’t call it a good game.
Hi-Fi rush comes out of nowhere to massive critical acclaim just to be shut down anyway because Starfield sucked ass. Why people ever do business with these shitass publishers I’ll never understand
Because the indie space is also a graveyard. Investors are increasingly wary of funding anything but a “guarantee” and plenty of studios have had to shutter because the funding they were promised was rescinded.
The major publishers are at least a paycheck that can keep a studio going for another year or two.
Because the indie space is also a graveyard. Investors are increasingly wary of funding anything but a “guarantee” and plenty of studios have had to shutter because the funding they were promised was rescinded.
Maybe gaming has become too bloated as a concept if no company can ever produce a product with their own money any more, instead always listening entirely to investor cash.
So… only independently wealthy people should make games?
Game dev takes time. The way you shrink that time is to do it full time instead of working on it in your spare time for a decade or so. Because of increased cost of living, the ability to just take a few months off and burn your savings is increasingly not viable.
That is where investors come in. Whether it is a kickstarter campaign (NEVER PRE-ORDER!! RAWR!!!), a venture capitalist, or a major publisher. And all of those have consequences.
But, increasingly, it is only the major publishers who are even trying. And they are increasingly selective of who they try it with. NoClip have been making an indie game as a way to better understand the market and they have a SPECTACULAR video where Danny O’Dwyer talks about his experience pitching the game to publishers and what kinds of responses they get. And it is really telling that he gushes over how nice one publisher (I think it was Humble?) were in that they actually responded and said they couldn’t move forward rather than just ghosting him.
Sure but that’s only a piece of the puzzle. Housing, food, and general living costs are so insane now that any decent savings would be obliterated much more quickly. UBI would be a better solution here, but that’s almost a pipedream at this point.
Um I disagree. The biggest barrier is having the capital to do the thing. I think a number of states have a reduced/free option if your income is below the poverty line (calculated as having low or negative income in the startup phase, not necessarily based on assets), or being lucky enough to have a spouse with healthcare. That said, it’s entirely doable to go without healthcare, albeit risky. I started a contracting company 3 years ago with almost no money and the tools I had from my apprentice/jman years, and still don’t have health insurance, though I’m hoping to get some later this year.
Taking a look at big-cash high profile releases like Redfall and Starfield…is “guaranteed failure” what they’re going for? Because those indie games were pretty much the main reason I kept subscribing to game pass.
Yeah the studio put out nothing but nice games. Sure, Ghostwire in particular wasn’t stellar, but it was also enjoyable and pretty well done. Evil Within was dorky, but in just the right way. Hi-Fi was phenomenal, and that alone should have seen them physically behead every single higher manager at Bethesda before they tough anyone at Tango.
But alas, apparently if it ain’t Fallout: Ghostwire or Fallout: Hi-Fi, then it doesn’t matter. Manager bonuses ain’t going to pay themselves (hrm… come to think of it, they do?), line has to go up!
The company said it wants to be “more selective and focused in the allocation of development resources”, and as a result of the “close examination”
Hate company gibberish like this. We plan to spend money differently… Somehow, but were planning!
Additionally Square needs to stop releasing games exclusively to a single platform, no wonder Rebirth sales haven’t been released as many (including myself) are waiting for the PC release.
Mainly waiting for PC release so I can use mods to shut Chadley up, and turn off all the anime grunting.
Very few third-party games remain exclusive to one platform forever, so in those cases I’m usually content to just wait it out until the exclusivity deal is over then pick the game up on a platform I own. Sometimes the wait can be pretty long but I really don’t have much of a sense of FOMO most of the time.
So basically they shut down their games actively being developed or games like NieR Reincarnation (I am legitimately upset they did not patch it to work offline, that was a great game that died yesterday) just so they could claim a loss. This is likely for tax reasons, if I had to guess.
This is the result of a change in approach to Square Enix’s development of what it calls HD video games (PC and console, as opposed to mobile and MMO). In its note, the company said it wants to be “more selective and focused in the allocation of development resources”, and as a result of the “close examination” of its development pipeline with this in mind, is taking the multi-million dollar loss.
You could buy it early access to give them the support (and get it cheaper) but wait for 1.0 to play it? Supposing you have the willpower I wouldn’t that is 😅
I’m definitely going to wait. I looked at the gameplay and while it does look exciting I think I’ll get turned off when it abruptly ends and have to wait another few months.
Do they offer steep discount to early buyers? I mean if I get the game at like 20% discount or something in early buy, then i would consider getting it.
ign.com
Najnowsze