I mean, as I understand, that was the purpose of that company. His customers were not the players, but rather investors. They wanted lots of companies to be acquired. And they were free to pull out their money, if that plan stopped working, which they did, which is why Embracer evaporated.
Problem is that Nintendo for all their faults still make GREAT games for kids. And if adult pc gamers think they have it bad they should have a look at the predatory shitshow that is tablet games for the 5 and under market… its properly fucking ridiculous. At least Nintendo has the common decency to give me an amazing and full game for its eyewatering prices.
the indie space still has a ton of stuff. you lose the benefit of always having accessibility features and easy ui navigation depending on the game (although a ton of indie games have better modding and accessibility support than a lot of high budget games as of recently, just in case they come to be interested), but you still get to see a ton of different stuff.
most of these without coming close to Nintendo’s approach to fan works, so i’d say you’re not going to lose much if you know the right places.
if you want games for Android, Mitch is a third-party access to itch.io, a game store where you can by the game and get the game straight into a zip file or what-have-you. no DRM, no questions asked. about half the games i mentioned are in there without the predatory behavior most of the time.
i’d probably pick MiniMetro and simple rythm games like ADOFAI or Rythm Doctor to begin with, simple shapes and an obvious thing to learn to do.
MineTest (has android ver.) and StuntRally are pretty close to reach if you’re willing to be patient and teach them to explore an open space on their own or of their own (one is basically a sandbox engine like Garry’s Mod, the other has a map editor alongside the several open maps). takes a while to understand the UI of each but it’s possible to use.
Celeste is notoriously difficult regardless of age, as a platformer about climbing a mountain, but i’m sure they can grasp it (no pun intended).
non-game programs are also an option. i remember having my mom teach me to use MSPowerPoint which made me break and build a ton of things later on by the time i was 7, it was a mess, but i made that mess :3
try an art program like Pencil2D, Krita or InkScape, maybe something unrelated like LibreOffice Impress or KDE Marble, or a music program like MilkyTracker (has android ver.) and take your time to teach them to make a tune or a flipbook or navigate a map, i’m sure they’ll have fun with something like it too.
It’s a game about navigating the mission of publishing “all the news that’s fit to print” when your key demographic may not want to hear that news, or may want it softened or ideologically slanted for their comfort.
Hasbro is gonna sell to some heartless VC and D&D will be dead as we know it as they try to bleed every last dollar from whoever stays. Sad times ahead. Capitalism strikes again destroying everything we love.
I enjoyed playing around with it for a few weeks last year. I liked that they had voice acting and context-sensitive dialogue like Velma saying, "Let's see who's really the world's greatest detective" when Batman was on the enemy team.
It's also just fun to speculate about all the characters that could show up (but probably won't). I'm still rooting for Granddad "Bitches" Freeman to join the roster.
Holy shit if they added The Boondocks characters, I might actually lay this game and try to look past all the bullshit. And I’d stick with it too, and they’d be my mains. I’d honestly love to play as Huey and fuck some shit up with kung fu and the Black Power Fist. Maybe Riley has like a baseball bat and his giant Timbs or something. Grandad would of course use his belt to fight.
Shit, now I’m getting hyped for something that’ll never happen.
ETA: with the death of John Witherspoon, however, I don’t think they would or could do the character justice.
I would like to see investigations into embracer being opened for fraudulent acquisition of companies and IPs and therefore market manipulation. I‘m obviously not thinking they did commit a crime there but it should definitely be illegal. Or were all those companies on their last legs? I cant imagine they were.
I can’t give you an answer to the legality question, but some additional information I heard in a podcast: The acquisitions came at a time when money was cheap and people were playing a lot more video games because of the pandemic. Unfortunately, they miscalculated because money is now much more expensive again and the gaming industry has not been able to retain these players across the board. Only 4 games that have come out since then have brought in much more than the production costs, which then had to finance the remaining ~15 (all from my memory, but it should be in the order of magnitude). That didn’t work out and so now cuts have to be made to avoid burning even more money.
If you understand German, I can send you a link to the podcast, if you’re interested.
Thanks for clarifying though. I feel like this should still be illegal. As a CEO, you are expected to analyze and somehow predict what is gonna happen, by market observation, paying experts, etc. If your company goes bankrupt, you‘ll get investigated to see if you made obvious mistakes you shouldnt have made. Dont ask me where I know this from…
In any case, embracer destroyed so many companies due to their foolishness, they should definitely get this treatment and get dismantled if they were acting reckless - which isnt a big stretch imo.
I just realized it’s Laura Bailey who voiced her! 😮 The Laura Bailey. Jaina Proudmoore! Wow!
There was a time window around 10-15 years ago where it felt like not a single AA-AAA game released where she didn’t have a voice role in. Absolutely legendary talent!
It’s interesting because I swear I buzzed by an article the other day with some eye roll complaint about there being too many games, and that’s why it was hard for games to sell.
There are a lot of games, but it means that people want to engage with games that are actually fun and aren’t soulless cash grabs or half baked early access with no real value or fun.
It’s just the basic “quality versus quantity” principle. Instead of shoveling out crap like Rise of Kong, Gollum, The Day Before, etc etc, just focus your efforts on a single good game. The only recent exception to this rule I guess would be Starfield, but that’s for Bethesda to figure out on how to salvage.
Speaking of salvage…at this point I think Bethesda themselves might be worth salvage value at this point. If they were willing to release a turd like Starfield, imagine what they’ll do to TES VI.
I’ve started turning more and more to indie games now, and I’ve found quite a few games I’ve loved that way. Deep Rock Galactic, Streets of Rogue, Valheim (before realising it’s abandonware)…honestly, good fucking riddance to the consoles who make it impossible to enjoy games by smaller studios.
Same. Indie games and emulators is what I’ve been putting a lot of my time into. I’ve learned that “AAA” studios are a lot like their alkaline counterparts - basically obsolete.
Valheim I agree. I did get a ton of enjoyment out of it on release, so it’s not really a matter of disappointment in the sense of fun per dollar, just disappointment in the glacial pace of updates. My feeling is that the Devs got their bag, then decided to just coast. It makes me wonder that if it didn’t explode in sales at the start, would they have put more effort into updates or would they have just given up. Guess we’ll never truly know
I think that’s going to be the big one in terms of changing the pattern of early purchases. It will also make it much harder for future indie devs to sell their games, which really fucking sucks.
kotaku.com
Ważne