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socsa, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell
@socsa@piefed.social avatar

Really? It feels like every other AAA game is an interactive movie these days.

LainTrain,

This was barely true like 10 years ago. Now everything is mobile games and live services.

Kolanaki,
!deleted6508 avatar

Narrative-driven, story-rich MTX and Battlepasses.

quixotic120,

Every yakuza game, baldurs gate, every fromsoft game, the insomniac games like spiderman, Sony stuff in general like horizon, god of war, last of us, etc, black myth wukong, the endless remake games (some of which are very solid) like ff7, silent hill 2, persona 3 reload, etc, rockstar games even (rdr2 was 2018 and gta6 is supposed to come out this year, maybe). The sea of jrpgs like shin megami tensei v vengeance, trails through daybreak, granblue fantasy, unicorn overlord, etc. And that’s literally off the top of my head

Mobile games and live services dominate for sure bc they shit money and are easy to develop but decent games still exist (though tbf a lot of them are starting to pull serious bullshit too. Love yakuza but sega locking new game+ behind a $15 dlc. First yakuza game I didnt do a new game+ run on and the lamest one to platinum because you don’t have to beat the hardest boss or run it on legendary)

LainTrain, (edited )

Every yakuza game, baldurs gate, every fromsoft game, the insomniac games like spiderman, Sony stuff in general like horizon, god of war, last of us, etc, black myth wukong, the endless remake games (some of which are very solid) like ff7, silent hill 2, persona 3 reload, etc, rockstar games even (rdr2 was 2018 and gta6 is supposed to come out this year, maybe). The sea of jrpgs like shin megami tensei v vengeance, trails through daybreak, granblue fantasy, unicorn overlord, etc. And that’s literally off the top of my head

Question 1: And those are all “interactive movies” in your view?

If the answer is yes:

Question 2: have you played literally any of them? I don’t think all of these barring the JRPGs could be more different from each other if they tried. RDR2, Insomniac and the Yakuza games for instance are pretty good, fromsoft not so much, and none of them are alike whatsoever, one is a GTA clone with a shockingly good story that’s as always, too long, fromsoft games are definitely not GTA clones sadly nor are they linear bamham combat superhero action games like the insomniac ones or story focused ones like GoW or Horizon or the insomniac Spideys (latter are particularly awesome).

I would be extremely interested what you’d consider not interactive movies? Factorio? Dwarf Fortress? Ghosts’n’Goblins? Super R-Type for the SNES? Umihara Kawase? Ultrakill?

quixotic120,

Only some of those are movie games, sure. I was more responding to your “everything is mobile games and live services”, which is just untrue

The only one I haven’t played yet is wukong. Also I agree the spiderman games are totally awesome. I strongly disagree about fromsoft games though, sekiro alone is amazing

LainTrain,

But the original reply stated:

It feels like every other AAA game is an interactive movie these days.

I stated that it’s not really true

And you went off to list games that supposedly support the original point.

And I said that’s not true.

And now you agree. So why even include those games or respond at all? This comes across like when you correct chatgippity or smth 🤔

quixotic120,

You keep going on about the original post. I was replying to you dude, who said everything is mobile games and live services. I never said all games are movie games? I just said you are wrong and not all games, AAA or otherwise, are mobile games and live services. And you are still wrong, and that’s still true

LainTrain, (edited )

Wuuuut?

The original post had nothing to do with mobile games and service at all.

My comment said that it was not true that all games are interactive movies, and you said it was - because of the games you listed, which you then said are not interactive movies.

Are you like, lost? Downvoting me with your alts ain’t gonna reverse that brain damage my guy, blocked.

quixotic120,

You are the stupidest moron I’ve ever encountered on the internet

Nastybutler, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell
brucethemoose,

To be fair, BG3 is like bottled lightning, and I think it’s unreasonable to expect many (if any) other studios to produce something like that.

Even the Divinity games were way above par, with a much more lukewarm (but not unsuccessful, I guess?) reception.

Lesrid,

Shit I loved Divinity Original Sin and the sequel, but even I don’t think Larian could match or exceed BG3

Opisek, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

Narrative-driven games made Valve into Valve. But ok, you do you.

Kecessa,

Half life is far from Planescape Torment…

mosiacmango,

2d isometric vs 3d first person. One format clearly lets stories breathe better, but that doesn’t mean half life isn’t story driven.

Kecessa,

Never said it isn’t, I said story isn’t the thing that made it and Valve popular.

I’m old enough to remember when it released, story wasn’t the focus.

Klear,

I would argue the storyline was a big part of it. While barebones by today’s standards, compared to the likes of Doom, Quake or even Unreal, it was pretty amazing to have a continuous narrative throughout the game.

LovableSidekick,

Halflife was 25 years ago, but ok you do you.

2pt_perversion,

deleted_by_author

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  • LovableSidekick,

    LOL when Halflife came out I worked at World Opponent Network - which Valve acquired a few years later, long after I was gone.

    Kerred,

    A better way to put it is story driven games sell. Mobile and MTX games sell better.

    filcuk,

    Yeah it’s depressing, I’m amazed we’re getting anything good at all by this point

    Kerred,

    It was tricky to find actual numbers so correct me if I am wrong, but if you look at the entire lifetime net profit (not revenue) of Elden Ring since it’s launch, it appears that Dragon Ball Bokken made all of Elden Ring’s profit in just 2024 alone.

    When you read Bandai’s financial reports they always open with their mobile games, with From Software titles getting an “honorable mention” at the end.

    xavier666,

    Mobile and MTX games sell better make more money

    Womble,

    A small number of mobile games sell better make obscene money, the vast majority make a pittance or lose money. But corporate types cant stop salivating at the thought of being the ones to own the next candy crush, so they’d rather take a shot at that than produce something with merit that will likely make a reasonable return.

    kryptonidas, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

    I liked Frostpunk and would have loved a story driven game in that universe.

    MarcomachtKuchen, (edited ) do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

    Ok guys valid points from everyone here. But who here has bought the latest 11bit Studios games? And I’m not talking about Frostpunk 2. I’m taking about Indika, The alters (not out yet, my bad) , The Traumathurge, Creatures of Ava ,… all of these games seemed like really cool things to me, sadly I could not afford them.

    CaptPretentious,

    The Alters isn’t out yet. Expected release Q1 2025. It’s on my wish list because I love the demo.

    Indika they were just the publisher. On top of which, maybe has a story that not everyone is interested in. I watched these guys play it, youtu.be/MuiHtAYOqgI and while it’s creative and it’s overall a fantastic game, is not one I’m going to play myself.

    The Thaumaturge, again they are just the publisher. I hadn’t even heard of this one which means as the publisher they did a terrible job marketing it.

    MarcomachtKuchen,

    Thank you for the correction. The alters is indeed not out yet.

    In my opinion for the other I doesn’t matter whether they are just publishing or actually developing. The games are not bar but apparently don’t sell well. Maybe their not the greatest at marketing but I enjoy the vibes they are going for

    bizza, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

    Did these developers completely miss Baldurs Gate 3

    warmaster,

    We could spend all day and night listing successful SP games, I bet they canceled it because the game was just bad.

    Katana314,

    I think highlighting the success story is kind of missing both the great circumstances Larian built that game under, and the giant mountain of singleplayer games that are pretty good, but hit no success at all.

    SweatyFireBalls, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

    Obviously this is just me, but here is a list of the last 5 games I purchased that were not smaller indie titles:

    Stalker 2, Elden ring, remnant 2, bg3, dragon’s dogma 2

    You could argue that remnant is intended for multiplayer and you could argue that maybe only bg3 and stalker and really narrative driven but the truth is, anymore I tend to buy single player and stream to my friends than I do actually play mp games. The only mp game i was tempted by was Helldivers and I was just too busy at the time.

    Anything else are steam deck friendly indie games. I buy a lot of those, and bought a lot even before I had a deck.

    In my anecdotal experience, when I see x game is multiplayer, or live service, or just not an experience I can enjoy on my own time I tune it out. For example, I always bought Diablo games but I don’t own 4.

    I also immediately think of some other big ones that I opted out of, like Wukong. People fucking love single player games when they are good games. I think the real issue is developing a good game is hard. Developing a game with dark practices and otherwise addicting (but not necessarily fun) gameplay is a much easier way to make uninspired games made by committee.

    It’s just easier to point the blame at the market than actually admit that upon self reflection you realized it is best to avoid the hard part of game development.

    KeenFlame, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

    Ah, so managerial problems again who would have thought but that’s OK we that make the things can suffer a little more

    Cornelius_Wangenheim, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

    I’m going to guess they mean narrative-driven “games” like Hellblade or Indika, which were all narrative and almost no game.

    pyre,

    even so they both were extremely well received

    yesman, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

    Why does capitalist reasoning always sound like a prayer to an angry god?

    We consulted the oracle and it seems that the dragon is tired of corn. So we’ve hedged our portfolio with wheat and virgins.

    Skullgrid,
    @Skullgrid@lemmy.world avatar

    because it’s made up. The stock has value because we think it does. Clap your hands if you believe!

    shani66,

    Because that’s literally what it is. Business courses are much closer to church sermons than actual classes. They don’t apply logic to things, they simply consult their already established beliefs for the path forward.

    CheeseNoodle, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

    Honestly I can’t think of a recent game I enjoyed that wasn’t a narrative-driven story rich game.

    TheFriar,

    They’re the only games I enjoy. And I could’ve sworn I’ve seen people all over the internet lamenting the loss of story-driven single player games in this era of GTA online. These douchebags are either salivating looking at GTA online profitability and talking bullshit or they’re so goddamn deluded with their head so far up their own ass that they can’t tell their colon from their pancreas.

    On the topic, anyway: my favorite games are RDR2, Cyberpunk, and Alan Wake 2. I wasn’t always a gamer, but the graphics have gotten so good and the stories so involved (in these here specifically) that I became one later in life. But now I’ve played all three of those games to death. Do you have any recs for similar games I might enjoy? I was just looking around the PS store and felt like I was swimming through nonsense. I really wanted to play Stalker 2, but it’s not out for PS5 yet. The next game I’m eyeing is a silent Hill 2 remake. Not a big fantasy person, either. I like stories with their feet in the real world. Don’t mean to single you out to give me advice, but figured I’d ask in case you had something you really liked.

    MITM0,
    @MITM0@lemmy.world avatar

    Doom eternal comes to mind

    Kazumara,

    It had a bit of narrative (killing the corrupted son of the traitor out of mercy and to save the world, killing the corrupted angel like beings because they are a threat to humanity), but you’re right, what really drives you is the fun gameplay loop and the challenge of escalating difficulty.

    Fades, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

    Sony has been screaming the exact opposite of this and it continues to garner them a fuck ton of cash. You don’t even need Sony money to do it, as per Baldurs gate that many are also referencing here in the comments.

    There’s no way they actually believe that, the C-suite simply can’t stop salivating over the potential money a live service game can potentially provide

    Bosht,

    This is exactly it. They don’t like their profit margin.

    BertramDitore, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

    If they actually believe something so patently ridiculous, then it’s probably best that they cancelled it. So I guess this is good news. Those are the only kinds of games I want to play. FFS.

    LainTrain,

    It’s not ridiculous, it’s true, but it is sad. As always the public chooses the worst things.

    themurphy,

    That’s not the sad part. It is companies going for maximising profit as aggressively as possible, meaning they don’t care if they could earn 20 mil on this game, if they can get 50 on another.

    LainTrain,

    Meh, if people didn’t pay or play those it wouldn’t make business sense to make em. Gaming is weird these days.

    Everybody seems to have “the game” they play like OW or Valorant(?) or Fortnite, certain genres like racing and fighting games seem to have split up from mainstream gaming altogether where if you just check out what’s the new Tekken like people assume you’re like a “fighting game person” that goes to tournaments and builds your whole life around it and have since forever, back in my day it was just a game you played cuz the dudes on the cover looked cool and the game was fun.

    ‘Core’ games are all rip offs of souls or some other crap that I personally hate deeply, or straight up remakes of games where the original is just kinda better, consoles and GPUs cost way too much this gen and there are no real exclusives.

    The trends in graphics are concerning too, everything is a TAA or AI upscale smearfest, PS5 can’t run that new Star wars game at more than DVD resolution without the same bullshit 8th gen checkerboarding or some other dynamic resolution technique alongside god damned AI trash. MSAA and SSAA seem dead and with them clarity and good visuals, all that artwork gone to waste, the only pretty games are MSFS and CP2077 with Path Tracing on max, UE5 is built from the ground up around smear and unity is enshittified, devs are cutting costs and custom engines are out, so future looks bleak

    The only thing that I love about gaming nowadays is indie and AA games, from Stray (barring the awful graphics) to Sea Power, Descenders to Teardown to Airport Sim, these are games I had the most fun with this year that aren’t 5th-7th gen classics. That football game at TGA from Sifu devs seems fun tho. Tower networking looks cool too, reminds me of cozy weed shop 2 vibes with a WTTG2 style tech element and a game dev tycoon art style

    ZeroHora,
    @ZeroHora@lemmy.ml avatar

    Too much “back in my day” vibe in your comment.

    LainTrain,

    Guilty as charged!

    Fwiw I love gaming nowadays, things like itch and steam self-publishing just didn’t exist nearly to the same extent back in the day, and this has allowed for niche titles I could only dream of back in the day and weird artsy games like Buckshot Roulette, Disco Elysium and Warframe finding success is awesome and was definitely not a thing in the past where gatekeeping was inherent to gaming.

    Even hardware stuff like FBT trackers and steam deck and the crazy modding scene of today are things I love about modern gaming.

    That doesn’t mean it’s not without things to critique, as every generation of games has, nor that nothing of value has been lost.

    ZeroHora,
    @ZeroHora@lemmy.ml avatar

    That doesn’t mean it’s not without things to critique, as every generation of games has, nor that nothing of value has been lost.

    Agree

    ExcursionInversion,
    @ExcursionInversion@lemmy.world avatar

    Please explain how this is false

    BertramDitore,

    Just look at most of the winners of Game of the Year. I’d argue most of them fit in the category of narrative driven story-rich games.

    idyllic_optimism,

    What doesn’t sell are the games that don’t have a well written story or well-written characters. Or the games that their developers themselves don’t have any passion or interest in, games just made to please shareholders… Or games that get preachy on issues without proper care…

    ampersandrew,
    @ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

    Baldur’s Gate 3 was only last year. Metaphor just set records for Atlas’ fastest selling game this year. Even amidst the tremendously troubled launch, Cyberpunk 2077 went on to be one of the best-selling video games of all time, and its DLC did very well too. God of War: Ragnarok sold at least 15 million copies. And these are just a few examples off of the top of my head that don’t fall into gray areas like GTA where they’re also a live service.

    ExcursionInversion,
    @ExcursionInversion@lemmy.world avatar

    Those are are the exceptions not the normal case. Look at almost anything remedy has done. Great stories but bad sales. Alan Wake 2 was still not profitable in November.

    Meanwhile candy crush has generated more than 20 billion in revenue

    ampersandrew,
    @ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

    Alan Wake 2 took an upfront buyout in exchange for appearing on a less popular platform. That would be an exception to the normal use case. A thousand companies will go bankrupt trying to make Candy Crush even though someone already made Candy Crush. And you can replace Candy Crush with Call of Duty, World of WarCraft, Destiny, or whatever you like. Those games take up all of your time by design rather than allowing and encouraging you to move on to another game.

    Damage,

    AW2 is epic exclusive…

    Montagge,

    Not everything is Elden Ring

    turddle,

    I’m taking as their way of saying we can’t make a decent story. Like a kid taking his ball and going home with “nobody likes this game anyway”

    Mandy, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

    Thats the studio head talking bullahit.
    Not the actual creators

    finitebanjo, do games w Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell

    NGL the title always seemed like it wanted to be a mobile game so the studio saying this doesn’t surprise me.

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