Performance mostly. But also even when made by various AAA studios, the resulting games often have this uncanny similar-ness to them. Personally i prefer in-house engines even if its just to maintain variety in the industry.
Also obligatory shout out to id tech for continuing to show off their engines with indiana jones.
ue4 was already bad in that regard. Really sad that cdpr dropped their own engine as licensed engines are wrecking the engine market (mostly epic tbh). Just so not worth it to delevop ones own.
like most engines, UE5 is whatever you hack it into being. I hate developing with Unreal but I do have to admit it’s solid in a lot of ways. and has pretty mature content/LOD streaming, one of the biggest issues I saw with Cyberpunk at launch.
I love Atton until about halfway through the game. It feels like he was half-finished and there’s just a huge section of the game where he has no more fun conversation.
Okay steam, if its just a digital license and not ownership… Then surely you’ll be significantly lowering prices, Since you charge full ownership prices for games, not license prices… Right?
Their 30% cuts allowed Gabe to start collecting yachts, they could charge a lot less while still offering the same services and only Gabe would see his finances take the hit, no one else in the world would be poorer if they charged 20% instead.
Should be cheaper, emphasis on should, but at the same time if they sell directly and take the same cut, that’s one less intermediary in the chain so more money going to the devs.
None of the managerial class are good people, wake up, all billionaires are taking advantage of us.
People seem to forget that just moderately decent games sell magnitudes more today than they did 20 years ago, too, thus continuing to bring in insane cash (as long as you arent sony or other companies that are obscenely wasteful…) despite inflation, this stable pricing making them a good entertainment investment for people whose minimum wage hasnt changed in like 15 years
regular reminder that digital distribution was sold to us under the false promise that games would be cheaper, because they wouldnt have to pay for printing boxes, CDs, manuals, greebles, Wouldnt have to pay for shipping or storage, or any other burden addition of physical media.
That we’d be able to buy games for 30 dollars, and that that the developers and everyone involved would make more money than they would have paying 50 for a physical game.
and now, they are wanting to sell games for 70-80 bucks for AAA titles.
Its not cause the games are 50 dollars that they arent making enough hundreds of millions. The only reason these AAA games arent making bank is because they’re shit
Can anyone honestly remember the last AAA title that wasnt an absolute dog pile?
Can you only use the in-game mod browser or something? Put the mod up somewhere else that Bethesda doesn’t control. It’s not like it’s hard to modify DOOM manually by dropping the files in the folder.
Additionally, extend the mod to include the CEO of ZeniMax as a Baron of Hell or Revenant.
I’d argue Steam is probably the among the most competitive digital marketplaces. No games are sold above their MSRP, there are frequent deals that drastically cut the prices, and the UI is clear & comprehensive.
Yeah it’s a bit convoluted and there are lots of things hidden in strange places imo. Steam deck is great tho, and the ui works well for a handheld in that context. On the other hand when I try to use big picture mode on my windows handheld, steam refuses to connect to wifi so there’s that 🤷
Coop is completely broken without this mod. A friend and I tried to play vanilla ER but 4/5 times the summon would fail, and 5/5 times I’d get invaded immediately.
Installed the mod and suddenly it all just worked.
Did something happen to the game that made it broken? I played this for the first few months when it dropped with about 3 other friends, and we never had those issues then. We would get invaded maybe 20% of the time, but 50% we actually would win, so it was fun.
The servers aren’t the best and it’s a highly popular game. Connection issues during peak times were pretty bad (and becoming a problem again as the DLC approaches) and the way invasions work, as soon as you have a summon you are almost guaranteed be invaded since invasions only get connected to hosts with phantoms (with it prioritizing 2 coop partners) or if they use the Taunter’s Tongue.
AI is the new procedural generation, in that it will be touted as making the games more real and immersive but really only makes them boring and repetitive, thus stressing the importance of genuine creative handcrafting. I’m looking forward to smaller studios selling their games with a “no AI” pitch in a few years.
I disagree that procedural generation makes games more boring and repetitive. I think it depends on the game and how the procedural generation is implemented. Look at Noita for example - uses lots of procedural generation, mixed with some handcrafted elements, and it’s really fun! Terraria, another similar formula.
Not my cup of tea, but a lot of people love No Man’s Sky for that reason - it’s fun to explore the crazy combinations.
The original Elite was procedurally generated IIRC, and from what I understand it was super fun (before my time though).
You’re allowed to like and enjoy things, even bad things… Hell, theres entire fandoms around liking bad things (like B-Movies), that doesnt make them less fundamentally bad. and it doesnt make you wrong for liking them.
The real message being sent is that you can release a $40 always-online PVE game with MTXs and rootkit anti cheat and gamers will tolerate all of it if they think it’s fun…
Appreciate you not jumping down my throat. You’re right, it is a low bar, and HD2 does clear it pretty easily. But you and I both know that publishers won’t hear the part about the game being fun (or they won’t care). My point isn’t that HD2 is bad, just that publishers will see its success and completely misinterpret why it’s successful. They’ll see a live service game doing well and think that people want more live service games, not fun games.
I haven’t really got into HD2, too online for my tastes, but I can see its appeal. I think there is a broader phenomenon of a divorce between where big studios are heading and where “traditional” players want to be.
They’ll see a live service game doing well and think that people want more live service games, not fun games.
I can say, when you’re out there with your squad and it feels like space Vietnam, that’s why its selling. That portion of the atmosphere, gameplay, and intensity is on point
I suspect the difficulty the publishers face is that fun is difficult to quantify. The read on this might end up being “All things being equal, DRM/MTX/etc aren’t statistically impediments to financial success if the game is going to sell well anyway. If we percieve them to improve our bottom line, let’s include them”.
I wouldn’t mind live service games as much if these companies were forced to give up tools to allow the community to continue hosting.
Corporations have made it loud and clear over and over: they will torch every scrap of gaming culture if it meant an extra 20 bucks. They are NOT to be trusted with the preservation of this history.
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