What sucks on my end is that this has only been the latest in a long chain of reasons to boycott Microsoft - so I can’t exactly claim, if they take a step back from “Systematically murdering innocent people” then I’ll go back to giving them money.
Basically there’s been right wing/terf/anti-furry think tanks lobbying those companies to stop offering services to anyone involved with porn. Their entire ideology is “perverted nerds are causing the downfall of western society”.
So tone deaf, and clearly they’re just trying to steer the narrative.
They call out that it’s never taken lightly and it has to happen. We know. Stop killing games just says you have to do something when you turn off the servers. Either release the server source code so it can be engineered by the community, release a self hostage server alternative, even just documents or guides on how to get started.
But they’re going to try to make it about the mean old gamers want them to go broke
I’m with you. Very puritan, kinkshaming article. Stellar Blade might not be my thing, but I know not to yuck people’s yum. One could take the opportunity to discuss sexual objectification, but apparently that’s off the table.
It just feels too easy. There’s so much good grind in this game, and it feels like there is very little reason to grind agility anymore other than clout, and even then now there is far less clout in having 99.
I don’t really agree with that. My reason for grinding agility was never to get stamina back faster, but to get the shortcuts. Once I got the ones I needed, It became about getting to 99.
And with the amount of people with 99 in agility now, there is absolutely no clout to chase. Hasn’t been for 10 years really.
It’s also not like it was made easier to 99, it just got less shitty having a low level.
I mean, it really depends on how you define scam. If you’re so loose with the definition that you would have considered No Man’s Sky a “scam” when it first released, then I can understand that.
Otherwise it’s not really a scam. There’s a free trial going on right now in Star Citizen.You’re free to check out the game for yourself. It’s in a really good state compared to what we’ve previously seen (not even close to bug free, but way more playable than before).
Obviously I disagree with the content. But this just reminds me of the whole “hatred” debacle. the game probably sucks (like hatred did), and its content was very taboo but honestly if some sicko wants to “enjoy” these games i dont think they should be censored. I really hate the idea of people not liking something and it being scrubbed from the internet.
Like if I decided to make a oligarch assassination game with popular figgures as targets. id expect a strong reaction but pulling it from public availability is just plain stupid. And id expect most of the people who think that non-consentual game should be removed would advocate for the murder simulators right to exist. We cant just pick and choose what to censor imo its gotta be all or nothing.
Again, dont care about these games in particular. just playing devils advocate.
It’s an interesting debate. One that I will not touch with ten foot pole because I do not have the knowledge to say which is right, but it’s interesting.
Is it better for people with these uh, interests, to have artificial content if it satisfies their needs? As in, for non consensual the vast majority of people would think it’s revolting, and that it should go. We want no part of it in society. But here’s the rub. What if the alternative is actually committing the crime? By offering an alternative that is morally questionable could it reduce the actual crime from happening?
Same thing with AI generated CSAM. utterly revolting. Think it should be purged. But, some psychologists argue that it would satisfy the desires of some of them, and it could reduce actual children from being harmed. Some say it could make the urge worse but some say it could prevent the real thing from happening
I don’t have the training or knowledge to say this or that, but it’s interesting
I agree, but the issue is that theres already so much taboo content out there ready for the public to “enjoy”. Alot of modern crime content heavily idolizes and even sexualizes actual muderers and r*pists. Game of thrones has incest and child murder in the first episode (i almoat dropped the show based on this alone). The dahmer tv show was outright denounced by the victims and yet still many people “enjoyed” the non-consentual actions of a disgusting man. I agree with censorship when real people are being exploited or hurt. Thats a no brainer. But where do we draw the line? The original ben-hur movie has a actor die gruesomely on film. Do we censor that? Bottom line, humans are gross. I think its best if we just look away from whatever theyre doing in the dark corners of their minds. (assuming they arent hurting anyone mentally or physically)
I really hate the idea of people not liking something and it being scrubbed from the internet.
It’s not, the devs themselves took it off Steam (and honestly I would have thought Valve might have removed it eventually). But it’s not like the devs disappeared from the internet, searching around I saw they still sell the game on at least one game platform outside of Steam. And those same devs could choose to sell it directly themselves if they wanted, to say they’ve been scrubbed from the internet is a bit of a stretch.
Agreed, but i was just speaking in general after mentioning specific examples. Sorry for the lack of clarity.
But to build on your point, You could make the argument that anything that has been uploaded to the internet cannot be scrubbed. most normal people use the internet completely differently than we do. Removing something from Steam, or Epic for most normal people its gone forever. I know for example my parents would never be able to find a movie/show again if its removed from Netflix or HBO.
I don’t follow the genre, but I heard that apparently Steam is also very inconsistent in terms of banning visual novels. And the fans seem to be pretty dedicated to them, so you have an example right there.
I’m personally all for “everything goes”, since the adults only settings exist, which might as well double as “disturbing content” filter. At the same time, it’s Valve’s choice what they want to host, and I don’t know a good balance of “reputation vs freedom”, which they realistically have to keep.
Companies need to grow a spine. Good games sell regardless of what’s out. If your confidence in your own game is so low that you’d push it to a slow release date, it’s probably not worth playing anyway.
I don’t know about that one. Games are expensive these days and if your game releases anywhere near the rumored $100 GTA 6, a LOT of people are going to have to choose one or the other, and it’s very unlikely that in most cases they don’t choose GTA6, literally the most anticipated video game of the last decade. Sure you can always buy the smaller game later, but a huge part of the sales of video games is the opening week, when all the hype around it has had time to come to a head, and you’re influenced by the fact that lots of other people are playing it.
Yeah good games will always sell SOME copies. But if you thinking that a game even releasing in the same month as GTA6 won’t have a permanent impact on that games sales, you’re smoking the reefer.
I think what you’re saying is true but perhaps you’re both talking about different things. I think you’re speaking about the reality of the situation whereas the comment OP is talking about the risk averse nature of large game studios. I don’t think it’s the same thing.
Also, I think I’m part of a growing minority but if gta 6 reviews are bad I’m not buying it until I hear it’s been fixed. I’ve been burned so many times 😭
You cant trust reviews. For example dragon’s dogma 2 which i just picked up is a great game. But some people wouldn’t know it based a lot of criticism and bad reviews it recieved when it launched.
It’s the exact same thing actually. Their claim was:
Good games will sell regardless of what’s out
But that’s just not true, and game studios of all sizes know that. The risk aversion of these companies exist because of the reality of the situation.
It also has nothing to do with a studios confidence in their game. The quality of a game is light years away from being the sole objective indicator of a games sales. The Outer Wilds is objectively one of the greatest games ever made and has no real peers in what it does. And yet it didn’t make nearly the sales numbers as the latest asset flipped Call of Duty game.
The Outer Wilds was a first game from an indie studio. On this basis alone it was practically guaranteed to not get the success it deserved. And it does deserve a ton of it.
Conversely, call of duty is literally one of the most notorious franchises in the entire industry, and pretty much sells on its name alone.
A good observation. Hence why one of those games can afford to launch during a crowded window despite its lack of quality, and the other, despite their confidence in their work, and the high quality of their work, could not. You’re starting to get it now.
I’m buying it regardless of reviews. Which are gonna be amazing anyway but still. I paid full price for Forspoken and actually really enjoyed it. I like the Kojima attitude of (for him it was a bookstore) picking something blindly that calls out to you. It might be amazing, it might be shit, but you learn something from everything you engage with. I just like the surprise of trying something I’ve got a lukewarm interest in and enjoying it a lot. Horizon Lego Adventures and Lost Records Bloom and Rage impressed me recently
Course I play games to play them, not complain about them online all day. And most of the time I enjoy what I find
if you thinking that a game even releasing in the same month as GTA6 won’t have a permanent impact on that games sales, you’re smoking the reefer.
Maybe they should stop trying to peddle bland-ass live service games that live and die by their players numbers then. A good solo game might take a hit to its initial sales but should recover in the long run.
A good solo game might take a hit to its initial sales but should recover in the long run.
It won’t though. This feel-good theory that if a game is “good” then it’ll just make the same amount of money it always would have otherwise is not supported by any real world evidence. And even the most hypothetically high quality, ethical, game making company is still a company in the end, and companies need to money to pay living wages and keep people employed making new games. And if the games they are putting out are high quality, they probably have competent leadership. And competent leadership isn’t going to gamble the future of their company and livelihoods of their employees on an unproven feel-good fantasy espoused only by people on Reddit and Lemmy who’ve never run a business before.
If the game is good, doesnt need an active playerbase to survive (ie isn’t entirely based on multiplayer), and the company is already reputable, it has no reasons to not sell decently in the long run. Also if an (already established) company’s future is jeopardized by a single game not doing well, I’m sorry but it’s not well managed. Ask me how I know.
That’s just not how these things work. Launch windows have a documented history of being uniquely impactful to the long term success of games, movies, even products. It would take some serious evidence to the contrary for you to claim otherwise.
Also if an (already established) company’s future is jeopardized by a single game not doing well, I’m sorry but it’s not well managed. Ask me how I know.
That’s not really here nor there. It also isn’t really true.
The two Horizon games picked really shitty weeks to release on lol. I think that’s done significant damage to the player base. They’re not groundbreaking games, but still extremely well done (imo)
The article totally misses the big intervening step between Skyrim/old Bioware and the failure of Starfield/Dragon Age: CDProjectRED.
While those studios largely just made “more of the same”, CDPR made Witcher 3 and then Cyberpunk 2077. Both games are way better narrative experiences and pushed RPG forward. Starfield looks very dated in comparison to both, and Dragon Age failed to capture to magic. Baldur’s Gate 3 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 are successes because they also bring strong narratives and emotional connections to the stories.
Starfield would have been huge if it had been released soon after Skyrim. But now it just looks old fashioned, and I think the “wide as an ocean, as deep as a puddle” analogy is good for Starfield. Meanwhile Witcher 3 - which is 10 years old! - has quests and storylines with choices and emotional impact. BG3 and KC:D2 are heirs to Witcher 3.
People like to write off CP2077, which is such a shame.
…And maybe this makes me a black sheep, but I bounced off Witcher 2/3? I dunno, I just didn’t like the combat and lore, and ended up watching some of the interesting quests on YouTube.
“make sure your pops doesn’t see you spent 400 hours in futa games.” (I don’t know what that means and I’m not gonna Google it while I’m logged in at work.)
Why would you not look it up from this context, it seems to be a generic “don’t let them see” , why would you be so terrified unless you already knew what it was?
Brooo you can get the title of shithead? Why would you wana be labeled as straight when you could be shithead instead? lol. That’s what I would go for haha
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