anything ai generated just feels deeply wrong if its supposed to be anything other than wanting to see how some idea might look like. I dont listen to much music so ai generated music can sound pretty good to me, but even then I still notice that there is no unifying idea in the details, just bunch of random threads that go nowhere. There is no reason for anything to be there in ai generated content because there can’t be any reason since ai can’t do anything by itself. Its so stupid they even call it ai because there is no intelligence involved.
It’s a complicated issue. In an extremely financialised economy like in western societies, a non insignificant portion of labour was detoured from productive useful work into entertainment and services. This labour is becoming more and more replaceable by NNs which threatens the jobs of bloggers, influencers, artists and the like. Personally, I think the negative sentiment is a mix of these people having privileged access to spread their message and the incompetence of governments legislating so that all these economic sectors don’t eschew workers resulting in massive unemployment and a further degradation of standards of living for a big slice of society.
Taking all that into consideration, I can’t help but feel a slight schadenfreude due to these sectors of society having hijacked the blue collar class struggle and shifting the left towards movements that are predominantly defending bourgeois causes and leaving the working class behind. I happily see more and more artists talking of unionisation and labour movements. Perhaps we can go back to mainstreaming relevant left wing talking points like minimum wages, labour unions, workers rights, et al. Group issues, rather than bourgeois issues that focus mostly on individuals.
The fact that this is possible is amazing to me. The fact that the whole trailer consists of nothing from the game but dreamt up fabrications of a random number generator with lots of training is not.
Games are an intentional art where a lot of creativity and work is put into a unique interactive medium. The AI trailer is far from that.
Intent is critical for my enjoyment of art. What makes art wonderful is that it lets you connect with another human being, get a glimpse into their mind, see their perspective, feel their feelings.
Gen AI as it exists today has no intent, so I have no interest in it.
Generative AI “art” is incredibly useful for small creators to prototype works. Whether that is storyboarding/previs or making a presentation to show investors. It allows those small creators to make something “understandable” while keeping budgets down during the early days/years of a project.
Once that work is ready to be shown to the public? All work must have an actual creator. Whether that is an asset pack you purchased because it is “close enough” or an artist that you contracted/hired.
But also? Studio Wildcard (the company behind Ark) is very established and have been making games for over a decade at this point. They should have artists on staff who are already familiar with the style and design bibles of the Ark universe.
I like the idea of mixed media with AI and hand drawn/painted, or acrylic pour painting. I also like the idea of using AI for lyrical inspiration, like the cut ups process. Where words are written on paper, and they are cut up and mixed together like David Bowie, Eno, Brion Gysin, and Burroughs.
It's because you didn't spend a significant portion of your life learning how to create things from, for lack of a better term, your soul, and then had a machine rip it all away from you. There are good things and bad things about gen-AI.
AI music is ass, so I can see what you mean about soullessness. This reminds me off Mass Effect 3, when they used AI for the faces and they were uncanny. They had to use a human touch to improve the facial gestures.
What’s rad about a character holding a gun with three hands? It’s insulting to professional artists and the player base alike.
GenAI videos can be fun to use as inspiration, but you don’t collect a reel of shitty animations and call it a trailer. I don’t even play ARK and I feel bad for the players. They got served a shit sandwich.
Good AI art should be completely invisible, like when romcom movies with no visible CGI are actually changing the entire sky in certain scenes. People were able to spot the flaws here instantly.
Or if you’re a 1 man studio living in their parent’s basement, go nuts with it. This is a gigantic company that could afford to hire humans.
Holy shit gaming outlets are really desperate for clicks. How, just how are these people better paid than garbage collection crews or entry level nurses. We need to make it impossible to make a living wage creating click and ragebait. Just mandate adblocking by default in all browsers, ffs.
I remember reading that bosses just scale to the amount of players so my guess is solo is actually solo. This would make the solo or trio only decision even stranger…
IGN: Sure. [Laughs] Back to the game, one thing that wasn’t clear to me yesterday. Do you have to play it online in a group of three, or can you also play it solo or in a duo?
Junya Ishizaki: The game is designed to be played as a three-person team, but you can play it as a solo player.
IGN: Oh, great. Or in a pair?
Junya Ishizaki: No, it’s either one-player or three-player.
That’s so weird. Why not give an option for two? What if a lot of players only know one other player? What’s the reasoning for “one, or three players”?
Just their artistic vision and game design philosophy, which I can both respect and go WTF at the same time. Like with their steadfast refusal to provide the option to turn off invasions.
Turning off invasions while still playing coop you mean? Cause offline mode turns off invasions (duh). I guess invasions are part of the thrill in their mind and after a random coop sunbro and I were invaded by a phantom while super low health and outta potions way into a dungeon in Dark Souls and managed to survive by hiding away together with no voicecomms, it‘s hard for me to disagree with them lol
I don’t know, I usually play duo and 5-6 is overtuned, and nearly impossible. Especially on automatons, because it just spawns infinity low levels. But then diff 9-10 feel like diff 3-4 because even though they spawn the big enemies, for some reason it spawns less of the low levels.
The game feels like it has automatic scaling, but it always feels like it is set up wrong.
I think I just did automatons back then because that's where the rewards were but it was a completely overwhelming number of enemies spawning in non-stop. Combined with the sort of time limit I just did not enjoy that experience at all. Maybe you can kinda get better and grind through it I feel I'd rather waste my time and money on something that's balanced around singleplayer, even if just optionally.
I don’t know what it is with Japanese devs and arbitrary multiplayer decisions. The way Capcom handles Monster Hunter’s multiplayer continues to baffle me.
From a PC gaming perspective, it feels like Western developers decided to just give players multiple options to play together all the way back in the 1990’s. This sort of thing always feels badly regressive to me.
My friend finally convinced me to try PoE. I generally like it, but it seems… Unpolished? I dunno. Kinda stuttery. Too much going on. It’s like they’ve just accepted and (mostly) implemented every single feature request they ever got without necessarily thinking about how it should work with all the other stuff. Not really a fan of the item/jewel/currency system or the skill tree. Like, I just want to play the game and kill monsters and make things go boom, this is too much work and planning.
I do love the carnage, though… When my level 5 or 6 fighter guy swung a regular white text sword for a regular non skill attack and it took out like 5 zombies at once, that was really nice. Never did that in Diablo.
That’s my highly unscientific opinion after playing for about a week. Sounds like 2 is going to clean up and address some of my complaints, so I’m looking forward to it.
Too much going on. It’s like they’ve just accepted and (mostly) implemented every single feature request they ever got without necessarily thinking about how it should work with all the other stuff.
I played PoE for a good few years around its release and had a lot of fun initially with the temporary hardcore leagues with new mechanics every time, but there is a good reason I haven’t come back to the game - and it’s not just that I’m kind of over the ARPG thing. Scope Creep has turned it into a convoluted mess to get back into if you’re been out of the game for a while (or never played it) and I say that as someone who typically enjoys complexity.
Path of Exile is much more flexible and advanced than Diablo - you have almost unlimited flexibility in what your character can do. Everything stacks too, so your jewel slots, ring slots, armor slots… Everything works together.
So this is not just hack and slash, you won’t actually be able to complete the game even unless you understand some of that complexity.
If you stick with it, you will have many aha moments where your character suddenly doubles his damage because you figured out a good way to build it and combine it’s items to maximize its potential.
I played a lot before but I have grown tired of it. But it probably gave me several hundreds of hours of semi-fun gameplay.
That unlimited flexibility to me is significant complexity.
I like PoE a lot and I’m rooting for them.
But I absolutely hit barriers where I can’t proceed because I built wrong. And had restart and follow a guide. That’s a normal situation for most PoE players.
I do love the carnage, though... When my level 5 or 6 fighter guy swung a regular white text sword for a regular non skill attack and it took out like 5 zombies at once, that was really nice. Never did that in Diablo.
If you think that is carnage, you should see what the end game has in store. You'll be blasting through hordes and hordes of enemies. You can clear entire maps in a few minutes. It's a blast!
My build for Settlers league was the most fun map blaster I’ve ever made. I made a melee witch (occultist) with Viper Strike that could one-shot entire packs and some map bosses! Just running up to a pack and slapping it and running off.
It was absolute garbage at bossing, though. The survivability was softcore/10.
Knee jerk reaction based on OEM feedback for a built in handheld interface for the OEM handhelds like the rog ally. Steam deck clearly caused a disruption in the market that Microsoft simply cannot stop. It’ll probably have alps joysticks that drift, they’ll slap an over powered AMD apu in it with a shit battery that it’ll chew through in an hour like every other handheld PC. Valve hit the sweet spot with the deck, and there’s no real reason to upgrade it, sure you have more powerful apu’s but battery tech hasn’t caught up yet and the only way to counteract it is slap a bigger battery on the device. At that point what’s the point of putting a power hungry apu in a handheld?
after careful consideration of the management decisions that brought us here, we concluded that 1600 layoffs of low level employees is the solution. those who stay will crunch harder for the same pay to make up for any lost labor so we can keep churning out slop that definitely has nothing to do with our crisis.
The only reason why EA Play is interesting to me is, because its offered on Steam and Game Pass is not. EA Play is even part of Game Pass, if I am not mistaken. But I don’t now the details, so anyone who wants to clue me in, is welcome.
Is part of Game Pass Ultimate. I don’t know which tier, if any, but it is.
There is little reason for subscribing when Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is closer in price. There are EA games for free but once you played all relevant games, you’re done. There are discount on the Xbox Store for some EA games.
Reminds me of the '90s when pizza places started putting an ever increasing number of 'A’s in front of their names just so that they’d be first in the phone book. So you had pages of things like “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Plus Pizza”. I used to just skip those pages.
That’s not really relevant. Different teams. FarCry 7 is going to have multiplayer and single-player like the past few have had. They just now are making it a more developed side. It’s a natural progression to success.
They're different teams, but it's relevant because, according to this article, this spun out into another live service project after HyperScape quickly died and the Ghost Recon game wasn't going to recoup its costs. The entire industry is facing a live service reckoning right now; it can only support so many, and making more expensive games like this isn't panning out.
EDIT: Man, I forgot XDefiant too. If that game isn't cancelled before it officially hits 1.0, it'll likely be shut down within 18 months.
I guess maybe look at it this way, if anything they are still looking to recoup the development costs of those games. So why not use that technology in a multiplayer game that’s surely to sell well? Right?
That said they also stated in the article that this multiplayer game has been changing scope throughout its 7-year development. Sadly, this means they are almost certainly in development hell. Hopefully, they find the path through but we’ll see if and what they release.
if anything they are still looking to recoup the development costs of those games. So why not use that technology in a multiplayer game that’s surely to sell well? Right?
But it's been spun out separately, according to the article...I think we're talking past each other. Ubisoft and Sega are not the same company, but Hyenas was Sega's most expensive project ever, and they still found the best decision to be not releasing the game at all, which makes some amount of sense because live service games have recurring costs. Maybe Ubisoft is staring down that barrel right now, as there's definitely a world where, like with Ghost Recon, a successful franchise's name won't carry your live service endeavor to even recouping any costs as opposed to just killing it in the womb and avoiding the sunk cost fallacy.
It is my hope, and it's possibly the reality, that Ubisoft has discovered that live service games are not guaranteed money printing machines. Then maybe we can get back to an industry that isn't so intent on destroying itself rather than the semi-dark-age we're in right now.
You were originally talking about HyperScape, not Hyenas. Technology in a studio is typically shared between projects. So it’s somewhat likely that Ghost Recon, HyperScape, and this FarCry 7 multiplayer game contain some of the same codebase. Certainly not a guarantee but it’s more likely than not.
That said, Wildlands is still up, the sequel did poorly for a number of reasons, pushing out a sequel to a live service game is always risky, especially within a 10-year period. Live service games are expected to be continuously updated. Overwatch 2 is a great example of how to mismanage your well-received live service game. Overall, Ghost Recon Wildlands is still making enough money to keep it afloat. Breakpoint went too far in monetization and overall too fast in title iteration.
Ubisoft, like many giants, isn’t going to give up on GaaS games any time soon. If anything you’ll see more and more. GaaS isn’t how I want to see the future but I don’t see a games industry future without GaaS being fairly dominate. I don’t think anyone sees them as a guaranteed money-printing machine. There are far better and safer investments than games to get money-printing machines. Real estate is a big one. Ubisoft is still a company of artists but equally, those artists are putting money first because we live in a capitalistic society where rent needs to be paid first and foremost.
Overall, though, I don’t see the industry destroying itself. It’s certainly in a squeeze right now simply due to consolidation. The mass layoffs we are seeing are because a bunch of giants have been buying up companies and expanding. Now the major companies have lots of IPs and brands to work with, they are cutting everyone that doesn’t fit the exact future needs of monetizing those IPs. In the grand scheme of things, it’s actually beneficial to the growth of small indie studios. Now that talent is likely to start and contribute to small indie studios. Hopefully with the business knowledge that corporate structures are only good for those on top. Maybe we’ll see the growth of cooperative studios.
You were originally talking about HyperScape, not Hyenas.
You say tomato, I say...it works better when spoken.
Ubisoft, like many giants, isn’t going to give up on GaaS games any time soon.
Like the above, I'm just saying there are only room for so many. Remember how everyone wanted a World of WarCraft? And everyone wanted a Call of Duty? And everyone wanted a League of Legends? And everyone wanted a PUBG? Those games, and like two of their competitors in most cases, are still around, but there just isn't enough room for more when you're the Nth battle royale (HyperScape) or extraction shooter (Far Cry). No one can predict the future, and my own biases are informing what I'm taking away from my own observations, but you have a problem where the audience now knows that when you sink money into a live service game, it's likely dead in a year, and you're out of pocket $X with nothing to show for it when the servers are gone.
Overall, though, I don’t see the industry destroying itself.
No, it actually is. Not the entire industry but the live service end of it and the games they created. They're designed with kill switches, self-destruct buttons, or whatever other metaphor you like. They're burning down the library on their way out the door, which is why, short of YouTube footage, I don't see how this can be anything other than a semi-dark age for the medium. Semi because plenty of games are not bound to servers or some other form of planned obsolescence, but a lot of high-profile releases most certainly are, and they'll be lost to time. Meanwhile, games from 30 years prior still live on and can be enjoyed by people who weren't even born yet when they released.
I'm totally with you on some studios shrinking, other studios forming, and the circle of life continuing. My prediction for the industry was way faster than the reality of things, but I foresaw that studios like TinyBuild, Embracer, Devolver, Anna Purna, and the like would inevitably come to be and grow, because there are games that the big AAA publishers just don't make anymore, and people still want to play those games.
you have a problem where the audience now knows that when you sink money into a live service game, it’s likely dead in a year, and you’re out of pocket $X with nothing to show for it when the servers are gone.
Absolutely but that’s also the same with every other endeavor. The issue here is risk vs innovation. All of the games you named are iterations. Everquest, Medal Of Honor, Dota (WoTC), and even PuBG started out as a Day Z mod. The big studios are looking for the least amount of risk with the most amount of innovation. They hope they can tweak things. Games that aren’t still around can still be fairly profitable. Even if it’s just profitable enough to get investments to lift your studio up.
That said I don’t see GaaS going away because it creates consumer buy-in. You put data and accounts into the databases. It means you aren’t just a one-time customer, you are a statistic. You are just a part of this large group that has its hooks directly into your email, and credit card, and can market to you. It’s why so many storefronts are popping up. It forces loyalty, especially when you consider cross-game promotions which may become a thing. They’ve certainly been trying to find a path forward on that with NFTs and blockchain crap.
No, it actually is. Not the entire industry but the live service end of it and the games they created. They’re designed with kill switches, self-destruct buttons, or whatever other metaphor you like. They’re burning down the library on their way out the door, which is why, short of YouTube footage, I don’t see how this can be anything other than a semi-dark age for the medium. Semi because plenty of games are not bound to servers or some other form of planned obsolescence, but a lot of high-profile releases most certainly are, and they’ll be lost to time. Meanwhile, games from 30 years prior still live on and can be enjoyed by people who weren’t even born yet when they released.
Ah, okay as someone who has worked on numerous titles that can no longer be played, I totally see your point here. It’s not that the industry is dying though. It’s history isn’t able to be preserved. This might suck to hear but I’ve worked with multiple large names from the 90s and they have built great studios, that they are now using to target GaaS games. They’ll point to games they made before as inspiration and I’ve pointed out how you can still play those games and GaaS games can be created to be preserved. They just don’t care. Multiple times I’ve seen people say “We are worried about building a game now, not when we can no longer support it. We’ll worry about that when we are shutting down.” Like they don’t already know that there isn’t money to worry about those things when they shut down. With one of them, I worked for 3 years on building a backend we could securely release to the public but they shut the game down 3 months after release without releasing anything. They don’t care to release things so that people can still play them. If they shut them down, they see them as failures. No matter how much money they already made.
That's precisely the thing I hope we've finally hit a turning point on, and that we have some evidence that we've hit that turning point. The metaphorical landfill filled with dead games as a service got so many more games this year. Especially because so many of these games are designed to monopolize your time, perhaps they'll realize there isn't enough time on earth to dedicate to this game when it's already being dedicated to 100 other games. Then they can come to the conclusion that there's more money to be made in 5 short experiences than 1 game that you're intended to play indefinitely.
I hope so too but I feel like we’ve not hit there yet. In some ways the sort of online, account creation requirement will grow and grow. To play single-player games now, you need to login to some random service.
Yeah, that's why I stopped buying EA games and why I didn't buy Tony Hawk. I'm not alone in the forums when asking about that stuff, and we'll see how much momentum that carries.
I think people largely have stopped buying them, apart from very few exceptions, which is why games like Hyenas get cancelled at the finish line and why we've got a graveyard of live services that shut down just this year. Second Extinction didn't make it out of early access. Rumbleverse didn't even last one year.
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