kotaku.com

dragonator001, do games w Last Of Us Studio Naughty Dog Is Cutting Developers

Not a lot, but such incidents are a clear indication that we are slowly seeing the Covid effect wearing off at its entirety. Offices and companies are way too eager to get back to the pre-covid grind. Their long held products are now being released.

I am also working in a IT industry and them slowly cutting off our Work-from-home days under the guise of low productivity is disheartening to say the least.

Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever,

… what? Does lemmy have karma bots that just fire off pre-written feel good comments? … Does lemmy have karma?

What does that have to do with any of this. Where is the “long held product”? Hell, the sister article is even “Yeah… that MP mode is never coming out”

dragonator001,

Well, I don’t know what can I do to assure you that I am a bot.

By ‘long held product’ I meant the games that were delayed due to covid.

And maybe I am biased, but I don’t really see that much of a positive except for big games releasing this year.

Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever,

Again, what does that have to do with anything here?

Naughty Dog have not launched anything since the TLOU remake a year or two back. And WFH is not mentioned at all. So I have no idea where you are pulling your random ass talking points out of.

Because this is a pretty bog standard “We have had a troubled development cycle and our publisher/parent company is cutting their losses”

avater,
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

strange, seems to be a country related thing. Working as an UI designer in germany and tech companies here are doubling down on “work wherever the fuck you want”…

My company has offered it from the beginning of covid and did not change it at all and my latest job offers included a 100% work from home option and also a few startet to offer a 4 days week with the compensation of 5 days.

dragonator001,

I am from India. My cousin’s job is entirely WFH, and as you said they’ve doubled down on it. India is also infamous for ‘meatshop’-esque IT industry and the biggest of them have forced people to office again, even though they could work from home. I am somewhere in the middle and they are slowly reducing WFH days, I can still work at the least 10 days from home a month, but that’s not a lot.

deadcream,

Maybe it's a corpo thing, how big is your company?

AlexisFR,
@AlexisFR@jlai.lu avatar

Well you’re not in It, you’re a dev. So you’re in a way more privileged position.

GrindingGears, do gaming w Capcom President Says ‘Game Prices Are Too Low’

I’m already 50% of the time on my ship to the seven seas. Do they want me permanently at sea? Same goes with the media companies like Disney+, Netflix and Amazon. They push it any further, I’m pushing off to seas for good.

They *literally, figured out how to beat piracy. The unbeatable problem. And then they had to go and blow it with their greed.

Meh. Capcom games just became $0 for me, because I’ll swear an oath before you to pirate every one of their games, from here on out.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

Inflation is a fact of life. Is a price that raises ever all it takes for you to decide to pirate? Did you do so when games increased from $50 to $60?

TwilightVulpine,

Poverty is also a fact of life. Not everyone can afford every price increase.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

Capcom hasn't even raised prices yet, and this person just swore an oath of piracy rather than waiting for a sale or something.

TwilightVulpine,

Maybe they've already been buying on sales.

I'm from a third world country. I still buy games as often as I can, but I also get that these price hikes are stretching people thin. A $70 game is like a third of our monthly minimum wage, it's a huge chunk of money that people need to live, and most companies don't bother to adjust it proportionally to our financial situation, even though there is no reason not to do so when it comes to digital media.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

That person just said in another comment that they have the money. Before you even get to piracy, there's also the option of purchasing and playing the games that you feel are priced fairly, because that incentivizes more of that to be made at those prices, and those games typically need your money more anyway. As for adjusting prices for different territories, I'm no expert on it, but I understand it might be related to people in stronger economies buying games from cheaper regions with something as simple as a VPN to get a game for a fraction of the price, which at any kind of scale means that that game needs to sell substantially more copies to break even.

TwilightVulpine,

Some companies still manage to offer regional prices. It's more of a matter of poor implementation or even plain indifference. The latter especially when the platform offers that option but the publisher maintains the prices high.

Eh, I won't speak for that person's habits but for me piracy was not the last possible resort but rather the entry point that allowed me to develop enough interest that I do buy them today.

And when today the "free" options peddle gambling to children, I cannot take the moral argument seriously even for a second. I would much sooner have people pirate than develop gambling addictions, the publishers be damned.

GrindingGears,

That’s just it. First off, I rarely am interested in Capcom games, think the last one I bought was in maybe 2016? (RE7). So this person you are responding to really is going off the handle over a nothing burger, I assure you.

But you’ve hit on an important point, that’s important to discuss. These price hikes are disproportionate to the growth of household earnings, and more importantly, digital media was supposed to drive costs down, and not up for the end consumer. We don’t actually own these games, we more or less lease them. There’s nothing physical anymore. Which is a problem. Not that I don’t like the ease of digital purchases, it’s the fact that at any moment I can be stripped of access to the product. Which makes it a lease or rental, not full ownership. Yet they keep wanting to drive the costs up up up, in light of that fact. It’s getting to be gross behaviour. The products are declining in quality, the costs keep going up, actual ownership of the end product comes into question, and the profits keep going to a smaller and smaller circle of people, some of whom are among the most vile of people alive today.

Enough is enough.

NuPNuA,

It sucks that skinflints in the west region hopping to save a few bob made companies wary of regional pricing in the digital age.

GrindingGears,

Nope. I only pirate when media companies can’t stop gorging themselves on billions of dollars in profit and shovelling shares and dollar bills down their greedy little throats.

It’s not that I don’t have the money, I’ve just had enough. When you had one of two streaming services and a Spotify and good prices on steam and whatnot, that worked.

Today we have preorders that eclipse 100 dollars, my streaming service bills are more than the cable bills they were supposed to be replacing, and now it’s just more more more. We want more more more

🖕

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

Two streaming services is less competitive than the 5 or 6 major ones we have right now, you can choose them a la carte in a way you never could with cable, and even if you felt compelled to have all of them at the ad free tier, you're paying less than cable and getting no commercials. Video game prices have lagged behind inflation, not even kept up with them, and the game you want will probably have a substantial sale 3 months after release anyway. It just seems like an incredibly thin premise to justify piracy.

GrindingGears,

I don’t need to justify piracy to you. You are the one that’s morally outraged here. Again, I have the money, it’s not a poverty thing. It’s a perception thing. When people act gross, I act gross in response. Plain and simple. You can try to defend these companies, some of which have larger profits than the GDP outputs of some countries, all you want. That’s your prerogative. When companies put greed before the goodwill of the customers, which this is by the way, then I act shitty in response. That’s my prerogative.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

You were morally outraged enough to decide that this justifies piracy, but this is Capcom we're talking about, not EA. From what I can see, they're not making their money off of gambling mechanics like Ultimate Team. They're talking about raising prices on products that are generally seen as quality and charging what they believe those products to be worth, even saying that this will allow them to raise staff salaries to retain talent. I don't condone piracy, but I was asking you what line you believed they crossed when price increases are just inevitable for anything that costs money, and I personally don't really see any scummy business practices attached to this. Beyond that, I'd also argue that you have a greater effect on the market when you just don't pirate or play those games that offend you at all and instead direct your time and money to a game that could use it more. That means they make more of the latter and the former is less successful for doing something you didn't like. Word of mouth of the games you played and the lack of word of mouth for the ones you didn't has an effect on the market as well.

NuPNuA,

I agree you don’t have to justify it, but I also feel like you don’t need to glorify it either. I’m not morally opposed to it and jah knows I’ve don’t some piracy in my day, but people who have to make a big statement about it as you’ve done above invite the arguments from people who are morally opposed.

amju_wolf,
@amju_wolf@pawb.social avatar

Having 5 streaming services instead of 2 when they each have exclusive content isn’t competition, it’s just separate small monopolies. They hold the content hostage and you can’t actually choose when you want to watch something specific.

It’d only be competitive if they all had the same catalogue or you didn’t care at all what you watch, which I suspect just isn’t a reality for most people.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

They're all trying to have enough to watch to keep you subscribed all the time, which means they have an incentive to keep making more good shows. But there's no world where 5 streaming services will have something I'll want to watch every month, so it's pretty easy to just cancel until you've got a handful of shows to go through on that service. Then you subscribe for a month or two and come back later. That's way, way better than a local television monopoly like cable typically had, with channels you couldn't opt out of for a cheaper bill, that still forced commercials on you regardless of your exorbitant bill.

amju_wolf,
@amju_wolf@pawb.social avatar

That’s so convoluted that at that point I can just torrent the show. It’s easier, faster, free and I don’t have to wait for it or try to figure out which streaming service has it.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

That's not convoluted in the least bit, nor is it faster or easier to torrent. If you somehow found out about a show but not which service it was on, there's justwatch.com.

Skyline969,
@Skyline969@lemmy.ca avatar

I didn’t decide to pirate when games went from $70 to $80 (CAD). I didn’t decide to when they went from $80 to $90. I decided to when, on top of that price, I also am encouraged via predatory tactics (such as matchmaking intentionally matching you up with players who have all of this nonsense so you can “see what you’re missing”) to buy a deluxe edition, season pass, monthly battlepass, “cosmetic only” microtransactions, second season pass, additional DLC not part of any season pass, and whatever other crap they want to nickel and dime their playerbase into buying. All just to actually get the full content of the game. Remember when games had the full game when you bought it? Maybe an expansion pack that had a substantial amount of content that was developed and released after the game was released?

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

That still happens. But instead of pirating the games that do that stuff, what if you bought and played the ones that don't instead?

Skyline969,
@Skyline969@lemmy.ca avatar

Why not both?

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

You're free to do as you please, but if the game wasn't worth it enough to pay for, pirating it still does them more of a solid than if you had bought and played something else. Let's say the game is Starfield. Sure, they didn't get your $90 if you pirated it, but if you're contributing to discussions about it, it keeps people thinking about it, and especially if you have positive things to say about it, you end up encouraging other people to buy it, which means that their business strategy of selling the game at $90 CAD (or any other strategy you decided justified piracy) is still that much more effective, and they'll do it again, because the game sold at that price. But maybe Broken Roads comes out for cheaper and you get your RPG fix there instead. They could use your dollar more, and each sale counts way more toward a future where that team gets to make another game after this one. If your word of mouth instead convinces someone to pick up Broken Roads (which you also hypothetically paid for), you're contributing toward encouraging more games to come out at that price point. Both games are going to take up your finite time, so both your time and your money influence what survives in the market.

Default_Defect, do gaming w Starfield’s Paid Mods Ignite A Review Bombing On Steam
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

The best part is that the free mods will end up being better anyway.

SnotFlickerman, do games w The First Borderlands Movie Clip Looks Like An SNL Skit
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

After how expertly Fallout nailed its landing by using literal assets from the game for set design…

Yeah this is gonna flop hard.

djsoren19,

It blows my mind that we’re still getting uninspired shitty adaptations after Fallout, The Last of Us, honestly even stuff like Sonic and Mario showed suits that people will praise any adaptation as long as it shows them what they know.

CrabAndBroom, do gaming w Half Of PlayStation Players Still Haven't Upgraded To PS5

For me, it was:

  • You couldn’t get one for ages when it came out, so I missed the initial hype period.
  • When it did finally become available, it was prohibitively expensive.
  • There are no real killer exclusives or features so no particular reason to upgrade, aside from games looking nicer.
  • Sony is releasing all the good stuff on PC now, so if I want to play a nicer-looking version of a PS4 game I can just do that.
  • Steam Deck
CloutAtlas, do gaming w Fallout 4 Fans Are Begging Bethesda To Stop Updating The Game

Todd Howard: we hear you fans, we are currently working on updates for Morrowind, Starfield and Elder Scrolls Online which will break add-on/mod support and ruin the frame rate for those games instead of just FO4!

VulKendov,
@VulKendov@reddthat.com avatar

Elder Scrolls Online isn’t a Bethesda (BGS) game.

jsomae,

I’d be thrilled to get another Morrowind expansion.

Paradoxvoid,
@Paradoxvoid@aussie.zone avatar

Too bad, you get a battlepass instead!

zeerphling,
@zeerphling@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Are you familiar with Tamriel Rebuilt? The team has been adding content to the mainland of Morrowind for 20 years. They’re technically not finished, but there’s plenty to do.

There’s also Project: Tamriel with Skyrim: Home of the Nords and Province: Cyrodiil. There’s not as much content as Tamriel Rebuilt, but all are being actively worked on.

jsomae,

Yes! Tamriel rebuilt is really cool.

Omega_Haxors, do gaming w Hogwarts Legacy Just Broke A 14-Year Games Industry Streak – For the first time since 2008, something other than Call of Duty or a Rockstar game was the best-seller

A racist a transphobe and an antisemite walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says “aren’t you that girl who wrote HP?”

JQ Lolling stares unflinchingly ahead and states “Your teacher, Professor Eleazar Fig, dies at the end of Hogwarts Legacy. This happens in all possible endings and can’t be changed. Oh and Rookwood is the one who cursed Anne while the goblins were framed. Also, you’re also required to quell a slave uprising and you have no choice in the matter.”

GBU_28, do games w Steam’s Most-Hyped Zombie Game Is Out, And It’s A Dumpster Fire

Project zomboid is just fine

bermuda, do gaming w Capcom President Says ‘Game Prices Are Too Low’

Interestingly enough, if the games industry had kept the $60 price point that they fixed back ~2005 up with inflation, games would be costing around $95 today.

Kichae,

Now do 1985.

Never mind, I'll do it myself: NES games were $50, which today is about $185.

NuPNuA,

That’s only because people in the US and Asia overpaid for their games. We weren’t paying that for microcomputer games in Europe.

blindsight,

That puts collecting into context.

Buying almost any game new and holding onto them for decades would be a huge loss, net inflation. Even most “valuable” games would sell at a loss.

TwilightVulpine,

Unfortunately people's wages haven't kept up with inflation either, so that would just be a double whammy of making people who already struggling to pay for essentials pay more for entertainment as well, and at that point I'd think some people would just decide they can keep playing their old games.

brygphilomena, do games w Nintendo switch 2 akin to PS4/XBO power

Are people seriously bitching that a handhelds performance doesn’t match current PlayStation or Xbox specs which are ten times it’s size?

If the switch 2 is a handheld, it has so many more physical, power, and heat constraints and I am impressed that it even matches the previous gens consoles.

colonial, do games w Nintendo switch 2 akin to PS4/XBO power
@colonial@lemmy.world avatar

After seeing the various forms of black magic Nintendo devs have pulled off with what is essentially decade-old tablet hardware… yeah, fine by me.

Lewdiculous, do games w Nexus Mods Fine With Bigots Leaving Over Removed Starfield ‘Pronoun’ Mod

Of course is Kotaku coming with a whole tempest in a teapot over this.

Kotaku is an absolute joke, but that’s not new, they are the laughing stock of game journalism for a reason.

Kolanaki, do games w Nexus Mods Fine With Bigots Leaving Over Removed Starfield ‘Pronoun’ Mod
!deleted6508 avatar

They finally give you something that controls how people refer to you in their games, and dipshits wanna remove it? This is as close as you’re going to get to having characters refer to you as a choice you’ve taken other than Codsworth and Vasco having like 1000 generic names recorded to use.

Whatisawaffle, (edited )

I mean, I sorta get it. Identity politics are political and often divisive, and some people don't want it in their escapism.
It's not a perfect analogy, but if a role-playing game had a mandatory character-selection choice to choose if my character was pro-choice or pro-life, I could see myself mildly resenting it.

darq, (edited )
@darq@kbin.social avatar

Not really a good example. A more apt example is if these people were getting angry that the character creator allowed a player to create a woman, or a person of colour. The game offering you a choice of pronouns is not asking you for a political opinion, it's literally just an option to create a type of character that these people don't think should exist.

And that's the crux of it, they aren't angry about pronouns, they're angry about trans and non-binary people becoming normalised.

Whatisawaffle, (edited )

I dunno, being a man, woman, or black person isn't political. Trans, non-binary, etc is, and normalizing it is political, regardless of if it's right or wrong. I think that you're correct and that it seems like something done as ammunition in the Culture War; normalizing identity politics rather than a design decision done out of a necessity to improve the quality of the game apart from that.

My earlier analogy was about having a pro-life/pro-choice option forced on you, but I guess to make it more accurate it would be more like the game just telling you that you're pro-life as part of your character settings? Because it's not just putting the politics in the game, it's taking a strong side. Again, rightly or wrongly, I can see why some people would resent that in their escapism.

AngrilyEatingMuffins,

Fuck off forever

darq,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

I dunno, being a man, woman, or black person isn't political.

I agree, they should not be, but people still try and make them political.

Trans, non-binary, etc is

No. Absolutely not. Trans people and non-binary people are types of people who exist. Exactly the same as men, women, people of colour, and so forth. They are no more or less political than those other types of people. People still make them political, but that's exactly the same thing as with other groups.

My earlier analogy was about having a pro-life/pro-choice option forced on you, but I guess to make it more accurate it would be more like the game just telling you that you're pro-life as part of your character settings? Because it's not just putting the politics in the game, it's taking a strong side. Again, rightly or wrongly, I can see why some people would reset that in their escapism.

You are mistaken. There is no political opinion here. None is being asked for, and none is being assigned. The character creator having additional options is just allowing players to make trans or non-binary characters. This isn't asking you for a political opinion, it's simply adding options to create more types of characters.

Which is why the bigots are upset. Because they don't think those types of characters should be allowed to be made.

Whatisawaffle,

Whether or not it should be, isn't LGBT issues political/controversial?

darq,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

As are women and people of colour, and their inclusion in media. These are all demographics of people. There is no difference.

Whatisawaffle,

There's no difference between a movie casting a woman/black man as the main character, compared to casting a trans person?

darq,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

No, there is no difference.

Your previous comments implied that there was a difference in type between the inclusion of women or people of colour, and the inclusion of trans of non-binary people.

There is a difference in magnitude of the controversy. But not a difference in type. Something can be more or less controversial, but it's still the same type of controversy.

Whatisawaffle, (edited )

Yeah, it seems we agree. My stance was only ever that I can understand why some people would've wanted to remove political controversy from their escapism if it made them uncomfortable and added nothing to the gameplay itself.

CileTheSane,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

Whether or not it should be, isn’t LGBT issues political/controversial?

Simply acknowledging LGBT exist

  1. isn’t political
  2. helps make it less political
nadir, (edited )

Of course it’s political. Politics aren’t just about things where there can be legitimate disagreement.

Acknowledging climate change is political. So is everything from basic public transport, better healthcare to if sexism and racism are even a thing.

It shouldn’t be. We also shouldn’t have a resurgence of actual fascists. But we do and it is.

SkyezOpen,

Acknowledging climate change is political

Acknowledging reality is political? I mean I guess I knew that already, but seeing it put plainly into words is silly.

Shit, I’ll see if I can pose as a right wing grifter and see if I can convince them that wearing matching socks is part of the liberal agenda.

CileTheSane,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

If everything is political then it’s impossible to make a game that isn’t political. This is no more valid than someone complaining that including an option for skin tone is political.

SkyezOpen,

Trans people: Exist

Brainlets: “Is this politics??”

Wirlocke,

I guess my existence is “political” then, I guess I can’t exist in a space without having something “forced” on people.

We were male/female, now were women/men/other, that’s it. It’s a personal matter that we go through and we want to simply exist. That’s only “political” when your dealing with people who actively want to harm our rights. I cannot stress enough that these people shouldn’t be treated with respect as if they’re not trying to destroy people for a simple personal choice.

DarkThoughts, (edited )

Aside from you being transphobic, you should realize that the people complaining about pronouns are also the people who complain about the "replaced white people" and "female leaders" in the game. So I guess black people and women are also political, by your logic?

RiikkaTheIcePrincess,
@RiikkaTheIcePrincess@kbin.social avatar

being a man, woman, or black person isn't political

Being a woman isn't political... until I do it? Kinda seems like there's no actually valid (sound? I forget the terminology) argument for how our existence is a problem, nor for how supporting or acknowledging our existence is a problem.

I don't actually quite understand what you're on about but it kinda seems like you're arguing that allowing people to play characters that don't match your preferences exactly is some kind of forced political thing and that's kinda horsecrap, y'know?

Anyway I'm gonna go exist at that bigot up there now. Byeee ö/

snooggums, (edited )
@snooggums@kbin.social avatar

I dunno, being a man, woman, or black person isn't political. Trans, non-binary, etc is, and normalizing it is political, regardless of if it's right or wrong.

Women and black people getting the right to vote and be treated equally has always been "political" you fucking jackass.

GentlemanLoser,

The best bigots are the ones that tell on themselves, dontcha think?

Kolanaki, (edited )
!deleted6508 avatar

I wouldn’t. I mean, I hate Nazis but I don’t mind a game where I can choose to play as one (so long as the context makes sense like it’s a multiplayer WW2 game or Diso Elysium). It’s a fuckin’ choice. If you don’t like one of the options: Choose a different one.

DarkThoughts,

Terrible analogy. It's just turning the binary male / female into non binary body types & pronouns to be more inclusive for those who fall outside the norm on the spectrum of things.

SkyezOpen,

Does it even affect dialogue? The PC is hardly ever referred to with pronouns, actually I can’t remember a single line.

Zehzin,
@Zehzin@lemmy.world avatar

I believe it changes enemy barks like “He/She/They shot him!” and maybe a few dialogue lines?

kamiheku,

Heh, I like how the enemies are considerate enough to figure out and use the correct pronouns mid-battle

Hey, you! What are your pronouns? … Thanks, now eat lead!

Zehzin,
@Zehzin@lemmy.world avatar

I might be a paid killer, but I’ll be damned if I’ll misgender someone. Professionals have standards.

Kolanaki, (edited )
!deleted6508 avatar

They definitely use your pronouns a lot. It’s all they refer to you as, aside from cute nicknames like “Dusty,” or “rook” or “renegade.” Probably doesn’t stand out if you chose your normal pronouns, since they’d just be say he/him or she/her or they/them.

Default_Defect,
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

A security officer referred to me as sir in New Atlantis.

mindbleach,

We can’t be far from text-to-speech tweaking a ton of voice acting. Might have to pronounce or IPA your custom name, to get an AI voice to nail it… but maybe it’s better-off being wrong. There’s disarming verisimilitude in schmaltzy NPCs confidently fumbling your character’s name. Or if some characters heard it, but haven’t seen it, and you catch some mutter ‘so that’s how it’s spelled.’

Whether that name is Paarthurnax, Heloise, or Ng.

Kolanaki,
!deleted6508 avatar

I am just picturing the orc noble who uses words incorrectly/mispronounces shit. Forgot what those are called, but they have similar characters in most of their games. In Starfield, they even called him “Dumbrosky.” Dumb Bro ski.

mindbleach,

Malapropisms.

Halosheep,

As someone with a generic name, fuck you!

magnetosphere, do games w A Video Game Flopped Harder Than Anything At The Box Office This Year, And The Mainstream Press Barely Noticed
@magnetosphere@fedia.io avatar

My first reaction to Concord’s record-breaking failure was sympathy for all the staff who had worked on and polished the game for years. All that dedication, passion, and effort, wasted.

Then, I found out the game had been live service, and my reaction could be simplified to one word: GOOD.

lilja, do gaming w Star Wars Outlaws Is A Crappy Masterpiece
@lilja@lemmy.ml avatar

Great article! Ubisoft seem to be really good at making worlds that are immense and magnificent and yet utterly boring to be in.

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