I see literally zero problems here. Did they have a contract with an artist? They didn’t? Well then it sounds like they have no obligation to use a real artist.
AI art is here to stay, and companies will be using it heavily. It’s ignorant to think they would choose otherwise. Why pay an artist to make an image you may not even like over the course of a few days when you could get hundreds of images to choose from in a few seconds using AI? It’s 1000 times easier and more convenient.
This is the only point that matters. Even if AI is here to stay, that’s fine, you just don’t use it when specifically highlighting the demographic most threatened by its usage. The post was just a bad business decision; they should have known how it could come across. It’s their job to know that kinda stuff before hitting Post.
If an independent developer is threatened by AI, then they’re using it wrong.
From a development standpoint, it is so nice if you are someone who is good at coding but bad at art to be able to use AI to help with the visual design of the game. It’s easy to say “just hire an artist” when so many indie devs are literally one-person operations who can barely afford rent, let alone wages for an artist.
I really don’t care one way or the other. I think AI being used is an inevitability. I think it would only really be relevant if Microsoft had a policy against AI being used in games for things like asset generation for example.
gods am i glad microsoft didn't have to dip into their literal trillion dollar valuation to pay independent artists any money at all to advertise the independent developers they're so gleeful to take credit for
I’m not defending Microsoft. They’re a soulless corporation releasing an ad around a holiday where a lot of people have time off and recently received gift cards and spending cash. I don’t think them paying for an artist one time when they hope to use AI for a majority of their throwaway adverts really matters.
Seems really ridiculous to me that they can write an article like this and still use terms like “deathbed,” “barbones console,” etc.
If anything this shows that hardware matters less and less. The game itself is king and Nintendo is really good at it. Beefier hardware has diminishing returns and people who write articles like this seem to have cut their teeth on the big leaps: 8 to 16 to 64 bit and don’t realize that doesn’t really matter anymore.
I’m a recent Switch convert. I had only Nintendo until the DS and then ended up with an Xbox 360…and then a PS4. With the exception of a handful of games, like Gears of War on the 360 and Street Fighter 6 on PS4, I have never spent as much time playing as I have during these past few weeks on the Switch.
I’m still trying to put my finger on why that is. I don’t even have a Zelda game yet on this machine, but I’ve already bought a few games to play when I’m through with what I’m playing now.
As an almost–40-year-old who had a Game Boy at age 4, the only thing I can come up with that has made sense to my friends is that Nintendo is for playing as opposed to gaming? I don’t know why that rings true.
I’ve also noticed that Switch-owners have very large libraries of games. While I have just a handful, the average among my friends and students is 80 games. Most of them bought the Switch at launch and again when the OLED dropped. Their machines are just chocked full of games ranging from AAA to indie games.
For me, that might explain the lack of Netflix or Discord. They use their space for games to play. And, also, if you have used the Switch eshop you’ll notice that it is pretty busted and slow. Perhaps the have tried to make other apps, but we’re just too janky or not in line with family values.
[…] Nintendo neglecting every expectation of a modern gaming platform while it instead tinkers away on new hits.
Tinker is the word here. Some of their big games are worked on without deadlines. Even Mario Wonder was made without a deadline, and the result is just great (albeit easy, except for that secret last level where I can’t get the f-cking flag). I would wager that Metroid Prime 4 is just tinkering along as well.
Fine with me.
I’m used to buying consoles long after release, so if Switch 2 comes next year I hope I can pick it up in 5 years.
Until then, it’s like being a kid again: playing Mario and Metroid until my thumbs cramp.
When focus is on gameplay and fun instead of graphics, that is where the magic happens. I also enjoy my switch but it doesn’t get as much time from me as I wish. Them indie games on my pc sucking all the time but the same statement about joy is there. I have a beefy pc that can play all AAA titles but what do I do? I play the stuff I could play on a 10 year old pc because those games are the most fun for me.
Good read. The article mentions people being happy with Miles and it being a possible way to stop-gap, and I don’t necessarily disagree outright but I do worry that flooding the market with interim games in the same engine might get a little tiring. I mean, that was part of people’s issues with Assassin’s Creed and far cry.
Granted, it’s Spider-Man with a number of variants, so there is a bit more differentiation. Playing 1, Miles, 2, and whatever the next is are all fairly different so it feels more like the Arkham games than the Ubisoft ones. I just worry that if we get a in-betweener for every major release it might get a little stale.
Yeah, I enjoyed Subnautica Below Zero, but a lot of people didn’t, and I can’t say whether I’d be happy if more games started doing that. I’m much more eager to play Subnautica 2 when it comes out
I’ve been recently addicted to Subnautica games and finished Below Zero just a week ago or so.
I also expected much worse experience as I’ve heard a lot of people hating on it.
In the end, I had a lot of fun playing it through but I definitely can see why someone would be a bit disappointed of it. There’s a lot of differences to it compared to the original.
Sometimes it felt like it was made much easier than the first one. Like very often you could go quite deep without any vehicles because those oxygen giving plants were everywhere. I liked how brutal the first games was with this. If you went too deep without a vehicle or airpipes, you most likely died.
Also the map felt much smaller and the sea was much less deep. And the leviathan creatures seemed much less dangerous and scary.
Overall it was still fun to play there and while the story wasn’t perfect, I think it was still entertaining.
I really liked the jukebox feature. I wish there was a mod to add that to the original.
And the sea truck modules were a fun idea. But nothing can replace how awesome the cyclops is to travel with. At least in my opinion.
But nevertheless, it was still a subnautica game and I had a blast with playing through it. I am excited for the next Subnautica game :) in the meanwhile, I’ll try to beat the original with some mods and hardcore mode.
Below Zero was originally planned as a DLC for Subnautica. It was also made by a different team. But it ended up being larger than planned, so they made it a full game, intending it to be Subnatutica 1.5, the same as Miles Morales. Unfortunately, they communicated this poorly to most players, and they took it to be Subnautica 2, which made it underwhelming. For some reason I took it as intended and liked it well enough, and I only found out it was disliked when I went online and saw people calling it Subnautica 2. They seem to have won, because Subnautica 2 has been rebranded as Subnautica 3. But I still call it Subnautica 2 because I remember the history.
As for the seatruck, I loved it. I never liked the Cyclops. Sure, it was impressive, but it was also a giant trashcan with a “kick me” sign on it. I was too terrified to drive it down the lost river, I preferred my Prawn suit with its actual mobility and comparative stealth. The Seatruck was a mobile base that was actually practical to use. And I loved the customisability.
I liked the cyclops because of how big it was. I liked the sea truck too though.
I think my ideal combination would be a big cyclops like vehicle you could use as a mobile base, and then something between a sea truck and sea moth for excursions into more dangerous areas.
It’s all web-based journalism unfortunately. I just don’t click on them anymore and start avoiding the sites that do it…hopefully more and more people do the same so the trend can die
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