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Katana314, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo

I definitely wish there was more negotiation with tech library companies about this. It makes sense for movies - it’s a one-time experience, you only see the supporting studios’ logos one time, and it’s just building anticipation for the opening moments of the movie. But games are things people play twenty times a week. Someone might see the logos more if they play in shorter sessions, and maybe even avoid playing for a night because they’re familiar with the two minutes of setup to get to “actually playing”.

I even wish there was more effort to put gaming menus before the launch. A long time ago, Steam standardized a server picker for their own games, so you could skip “launching the game, hitting Server Browser”, instead just open the server list, double click one, and then that’s your “launching” task taking you to the thing you want to play. Even consoles could do this, even for games using matchmaking. I remember this being something the PS5 promoted in its menus but, not having a PS5, I’m curious if many games followed though.

aniki,

You would think that the shit-shoveling marketeers would figure out that showing an unskippable logo does brand damage.

Norgur,

luckily, most games are easily modded: Just put a 1-2 frames black video file where the brand logos used to be. Done.

catloaf, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo

I don’t think people are playing Kirby games expecting Dolby surround sound anyway, so this seems like it’d be a pretty easy decision.

bigmclargehuge, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah… i don’t understand why this is a good move. Sacrificing an element that would noticably improve a core aspect of the games design for the sake of not looking at a picture for a few seconds on startup? Seems completely backwards if you ask me.

Norgur,

You need to toake into account that we're talking about a Kirby game here, which are all 2/2.5/sometimes 3D platformers. So The real effect of Dolby in such a thing would have been close to zero.

CaptDust,

The context is Kirby Air Ride, a racing spinoff. Not that it changes much, but it is fully 3D and a genre that can take advantage of surround sound.

the_artic_one, (edited )

That came out on GameCube back when we were all still using composite cables that didn’t support surround anyway.

Edit: Apparently I was misinformed, still KAR was such a casual arcadey game that I’m sure it got more benefit out of quick startup than it would have from surround support.

Grangle1,

Exactly. Until around 2005 with the advent of affordable HDTVs and the war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, anything more than what came stock with your TV, which was usually standard definition picture and stereo sound, was something of a luxury. Sound bars were only really starting to become a popular thing.

RightHandOfIkaros,

This is not true at all and demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of how surround sound worked.

Nintendo 64 games like Donkey Kong 64 and Conker’s Bad Fur Day supported surround sound. Even Star Fox on the SNES supported surround sound. All through composite cables.

It works by encoding multiple channels into two channels, so it can then decode those channels to send the proper signal to the proper speaker. For Dolby specifically, you need a Pro Logic compatible receiver, which could decode that signal. If you don’t have a Pro Logic compatible receiver then you will only hear stereo output.

the_artic_one,

Well TIL.

profound misunderstanding of how surround sound worked

You got me, I didn’t know anyone who even owned a surround sound setup in the gamecube era.

Norgur,

oh, it was the racing game? I must have gone through the text too quickly then. Yet, if we're pragmatic: How many people would have really enjoyed that game (which wasn't stellar to begin with) more with properly encoded surround sound, and how many would have enjoyed it a tad less because of the annoying logo spam on startup? I don't think Surround-Sound-enjoyers were the target audience for that one.

bigmclargehuge,
@bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah I did consider that when I made my comment. And keep in mind I do see where they’re coming from. It’s not like I’m calling them stupid for this decision. I personally just see it as a massive overcorrection for something that will, in the grand scheme, have virtually no effect on the quality of the game for literally anyone besides the person who made this decision.

I know it’s not the best comparison, but to me it would be like if RTX support required an RTX logo, and a major studio just removed RTX from their game, not for any performance or quality issues, but solely for a logo. Again, it just seems like an overcorrection for a non-issue. I’ll admit, I sometimes get annoyed by intro logos, but never enough to the point where I’d think it’s worth removing features to get rid of them.

Norgur,

I got the impression that “removing” means removing before it was really implemented. Like, it was planned and decided upon, but it wasn't ready. He checked the license and went “nope, not having it” and scrapped the feature. It doesn't truly become clear in the text, of course, but that's how I read this.

RightHandOfIkaros,

You realize this is Lemmy, and on Lemmy you have to hate every business and every product produced by a business apparently, right? If it isn’t FOSS, then you aren’t allowed to like it.

ryven,

This is Sakurai’s explanation, and it seems reasonable to me:

“I feel very sorry for making the user wait,” he explained. “If you take one second from each user, that means you’ll be taking 10,000 seconds from 10,000 people. The more this repeats over the years, the more time you will cause players to lose."

IzzyScissor,

I remember one of l Hank Green’s older videos when he added up all the viewtime from all of their videos and realized it was longer than the average human lifespan. Of course, he immediately framed it as “We’ve killed a man!”

applepie, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo

Corporate loga are cancer. I don't give a fuck about your shiti brand. I paid you for use the license. You don't get to fucking stick your shiti advert into my life after I pay you.

RightHandOfIkaros,

Actually yes, they do. You paid for a license.

See, now before you used to be able to buy an individual copy of the game. Then you did have the right to edit those out. Can’t do that when you only buy a license.

applepie,

Yarrr ;)

KingThrillgore, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

Fucking based

RizzRustbolt, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo

The only Dolby worth sitting through is Thomas.

turkalino, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo
@turkalino@lemmy.yachts avatar

Lots of people ITT complaining that Lemmy is blanket anti-business, meanwhile I’m just surprised that something involving Nintendo isn’t being downvoted into oblivion

This place is getting more diverse, I like it

Zacryon,

Fe-diverse

Soggy,

MasterHero SoccerGuy is too pure for downvotes.

Veraxus, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo

I approve.

deafboy, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo
@deafboy@lemmy.world avatar

The only thing worse than unskipable ads are the waiting screens (press a button to continue) in front of the loading screens.

I mean, the machine is capable of billions of operations per second. Why is it waiting for ME to push a button?

rushaction,

But however will it determine the player one controller … on a desktop computer?

Stardust,

Dunno if you want a serious answer, but 'press start' titlescreens that start up an animation if you leave it unpressed too long are a throwback to when if a screen showed the same image for too long, it would fry the image on to the screen and leave a little ghost image, so screensavers were a screen saver. This allowed one to demo software and just leave it running without worrying about damaging the product hardware.
These days however it is totally unnecessary.

dev_null,

So that if you leave the room to make yourself a tea or something while the game is loading, your won’t miss the cut scene / beginning of the action / lose the game because it started without you present.

arin,

It’s just an arcade feature that got brought over

aksdb,

At least some games parallelize this. The game then already loads assets, caches shaders etc while the intro rolls.

mlg, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo
@mlg@lemmy.world avatar

This scrub is why Brawl ran in slow motion and included random tripping because the 5 melee players scared him with enjoyable competitive gameplay.

It’s probably because they didn’t want to pay Dolby licensing fees, not because it makes a 2 second difference in the loading screen.

even see how this would affect the loading screen considering I run live AC3 encoding on an old laptop much older than the switch and it has zero effect on the boot and login time. nvm it was a GC game.

Basically every Wii game shipped with Dolby Digital no issue.

blusterydayve26, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo

The hero we didn’t deserve.

ripcord,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

You deserve it.

LaunchesKayaks, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo
@LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world avatar

Oh fuck I forgot about Kirby Air Ride. That game was amazing. My mom and I would get insanely competitive over it.

Suavevillain, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo
@Suavevillain@lemmy.world avatar

Sakurai is the goat.

Etterra, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo

It’s especially weird to have all that time dedicated to something nobody cares about. Who goes looking to see if a game or movie was made using Dolby?

Potatos_are_not_friends,
Telodzrum,

Anyone with good media equipment cares.

tacosplease,

You were down voted, yet here I am. A person who cares about surround sound options.

GeekFTW,

But do you as that person need to know that fact every time you launch the game or is finding out about it before you buy it from it’s technical information sufficient?

You can care about surround sound options, but a non skippable splash screen on every launch gives you zero information or use.

tacosplease,

Nobody is advocating for the sound to play at startup. The comment that started this conversation specifically uses the word “looking”. We’re just saying people do pay attention to what kind of surround sound something has.

h3mlocke,

It must be weird to care about being reminded of what surround sound the game is using everytime u play it? Nobody’s saying they don’t care about sound quality, nor options. Idk how u can read this thread and that be your takeaway. It should be on the box/product description, no need for a splash screen in the game is what the argument is about…

tacosplease,

I was originally responding to the comment about looking for surround sound options and was not trying to defend the sounds. Obviously, the info on the box is usually the best way to tell.

But as we discuss it, some use cases for the sound come to mind.

If the media is just a file on a hard drive or if the original packaging is lost or damaged, I might appreciate having the sound to indicate what settings to use on the receiver.

And honestly beyond all that… Who cares if somebody does like having the sound play every time? We all do weird shit.

SeattleRain,

You don’t need to be reminded about sound encoding every time you boot the game even if you do care.

Telodzrum,

Dolby (and others) have determined that it is in the best interest of their brand to put this alongside developers, producers, publishers, and others. It is now part of their license agreement.

SeattleRain,

Okay, and their ego maniacs for thinking they’re that big of a part of the game to be credited everytime. That’s why most people in the thread applaud the move.

Telodzrum,

I don’t agree, but it’s good that you always have the option of not buying a game with a brief splash screen.

SeattleRain,

It’s good that creators have the ability to boot parasitic vendors like Dolby when their licensing agreements are insanely greedy too.

Telodzrum,

Ok boss, sure

aksdb,

That information belongs in the specs/feature list on the encasing, not in the fucking splash screen as dedicated video.

For the buyer that would be too late and for the one who bought it already and now wants to play it’s utterly pointless.

Telodzrum,

It’s on the box. In order to license it the grantor requires screen time.

ricdeh,
@ricdeh@lemmy.world avatar

No, the grantor requires fees. Screen time is just a bonus

h3mlocke,

Wow

summerof69,

Anyone with good media equipment cares when they consider purchasing a game. Nobody needs this info every time they launch it.

JasonDJ,

Playstation 1 boot up sequence plays in background

Telodzrum,

The two go hand in hand. Want DolbyVision? The logo comes with that.

h3mlocke,

Wow

Smokeless7048,

yea, ill go looking for great movies and games which have good Dolby Atmos… but once i buy it, i dont need to see a splash screen every time.

Wish we could have a single splash screen with all the bits of tech. then its only one, instead of screen after screen…

EmperorHenry, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo
@EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

The hero we deserve!

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