videogameschronicle.com

cdipierr, do gaming w Netflix is reportedly exploring adding in-game ads to its gaming service

I love companies swinging between “we have to increase your subscription costs to allow us to offer more great features” and “our customers are excited about our new features so we need to leverage advertising to continue providing them”. Just repeat until everything is loaded with ads AND costs twice as much!

alyaza,
@alyaza@beehaw.org avatar

honestly, the thing that gets me here is–who even focuses on Netflix Gaming in the first place? i never hear about stuff dropping in their ecosystem, and so it really feels like an afterthought service to begin with that they’ve bolted onto their main business

sigmaklimgrindset,

Ok no joke, I discovered Dead Cells, one of my favourite rougelike games currently, through Netflix. I was browsing through Netflix mobile, saw that they had a gaming section, and that was one of the first suggested games.

I now own 3 copies of Dead Cells+DLCs (one for every platform I game on). However, I don’t have a Netflix subscription anymore, lol.

Revan343,

They have a few good games, I really like Moonlighter

agressivelyPassive,

And that is exactly the problem.

They throw a half assed product at the wall without notifying anyone, nothing sticks, so now they’re throwing in ads to recover costs.

I really feel like the C suites of these companies are run by complete morons, without hyperbole. These people are not good at what they’re doing. They just floated to the top during a period where money was free and being bold was more important than being right.

TowardsTheFuture, do gaming w ‘I am sorry’: Unity partially walks back on controversial monetization plans | VGC

So they walked back the part where they would’ve been sued anyways because it was already in their contract that they couldn’t retroactively charge you unless you renewed/updated. They of course changed it for this update.

“Oops you caught us doing something illegal and bad so we’ll still do the bad part, but we are sooo sorry you caught us trying to do something against our contracts, so I guess we’ll remove that part. See how sorry and humbled we are? Now give us your money.”

TipRing,
@TipRing@kbin.social avatar

Someone finally calculated the cost of legal challenges, I guess. While this certainly saves in developer costs in legal fees, I don't see why anyone would keep their projects in Unity under the new terms, charging a developer based on a metric disconnected from sales is always going to incur unacceptable risk unless the developer has really deep pockets.

echodot,

I never understood why they even had that clause in their contract. You’re already not allowed to change the terms of a contract after the contract has been agreed (because otherwise what’s the point), you don’t need to independently include wording to say you won’t do it. Equally removing the wording doesn’t allow you to make those changes.

So effectively they had some wording that didn’t give anybody any additional protections, then removed it, thus not removing any protections. They then acted as if that weirdly allowed them to break the law, and then broke the law. Then when someone pointed out that’s not how it works, they backtracked.

Does Unity even have any corporate lawyers?

MudMan, do nintendo w Nintendo has filed a patent for ‘smart fluid’ joysticks, perhaps to eliminate drift | VGC
@MudMan@kbin.social avatar

It is absolutely amazing that nobody seems to have clicked through to the actual article.

So for all the "just use hall effect sticks" people, the patent is apparently not just for a solution to drift but also a way to add variable pressure to sticks, kinda like what Sony does to triggers.

It took me like fifteen seconds to read deep enough to find that.

For what it's worth, I think it could be interesting, especially if applied in a Nintendo-like way, bur proprietary stuff like that tends to go underutilized. You know, like the triggers on the PS5 controller.

kernelle,

It’s not clear, then, whether developers would be able to change the resistance of the fluid to provide some sort of force feedback, or a resistance similar to that of the triggers in the PS5‘s DualSense controller (for steering in racing games, for example).

For someone who supposedly read the article you seem to be making big assumptions

MudMan,
@MudMan@kbin.social avatar

No, I read the whole thing, including that line, but that's entirely editorializing from the reporter. The quotes from the actual patent are pretty clear, machine translation word soup aside.

You being nitpicky made me go dig up the full patent, which makes it even clearer: "(...) The intensity of the magnetic field can be designated from the application. Thus, it is possible to perform flexible control in accordance with the application".

I don't blame the commenters for not going that extra step, though, that's just me being fastidious. I do blame the reporters focusing on stick drift because mah clicks for not reading the patent properly, though.

EDIT: For what it's worth, I find the idea of a stick being full of ferrofluid or whatever else they're using for this to be... likely finicky and potentially messy and fragile, depending on how much you need in there to make it work properly. This sounds intriguing and weirdly high-tech, but if you made me bet I wouldn't feel comfortable putting money on this showing up on a Switch 2 just yet. Could be wrong, though.

treefrog,

Reading your edit here.

I won’t buy a Nintendo controller again until they’re out for awhile and I know they’re good.

The two I have are garbage and I didn’t even get drift. The stick flick makes a lot of high precision games unplayable. And most of the time I use a third party controller that’s better, more reliable, and half the price.

MudMan,
@MudMan@kbin.social avatar

I mean, that's fair enough, I suppose. Like I said elsewhere I've had more problems with the PS5 controllers than the Switch ones, but my guess is this is luck of the draw. Some people just don't like the Joycon form factor, and that's also fair. I have some wrist issues and split controllers are amazing for my specific issues, so I'm very on board with the design for very specific reasons.

FWIW, I suspect a lot of the issues people report with those things are down to connectivity, not build quality. The BT antenna in those is terrible and it's being power starved to run on their tiny batteries. I've used literally hundreds of Joycon at one point or another and rarely seen legit stick drift, but I've had controllers where in a noisy environment just your hand grip could make the connection get all flaky. What the Switch does in that scenario seems to be to just hold your stick position and call it a day, which isn't great.

kernelle,

I found a comment about the accuracy of the reader combined with a factual difference from the article very ironic and should be elaborated, which you did. +1

n3m37h,

You do know Sony utilizes hall effect in the triggers?

MudMan,
@MudMan@kbin.social avatar

For the haptic feedback? No, it's a mechanical screw with a physical stop to keep it from turning at the right time. You can see it disassembled here. The sensor may be a hall effect sensor, I don't actually know, but once again, the patent isn't about drift.

Watching that video gave me flashbacks about how much of a pain in the ass these are to disassemble, too, which is why I have several of these with stick drift issues just gathering dust instead of actually repairing them.

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

Thankfully skippable logos and SRS are standard now. Devs won that round.

Blackmist,

Most games don’t use Dolby anyway. It’s PCM (although the console can often convert to DTS or Dolby Digital if you have a crappy old sound system).

Dolby Surround was only needed for mixing the surround channels into stereo output.

avater, do games w Two indie Steam games were disguised as Helldivers 2 to scam players
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

how the fuck is it impossible for me to get a decent, not taken, username in most online games or launchers but these scammers can change their games to whatever the heck they want?

Shouldn’t be hard to implement a check if the game name and other info is already listed in the store somewhere else…

smeg,

Display name vs actual user ID, right? You can change your display name to whatever but the actual account name will be the same. Kind of insane that Steam lets you change quite so much in one go without flagging suspicious behaviour though.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

I just started typing in common video game title words in Steam's search, and I found several games just called "Void". We can extrapolate that scenario out and say maybe a new game is the first one on Steam to be called Void, but maybe there was an old DOS game called Void that came to Steam later after rights issues have been resolved. There's also the very common situation of a remake and its original version both being available on Steam, and maybe different companies own the rights to each one, like Star Wars: Battlefront. Perhaps these and other reasons are why those checks don't exist, but maybe they will now if these sorts of scams become more common.

echodot,

maybe different companies own the rights to each one, like Star Wars: Battlefront

It’s going to be really confusing soon because there will be;

  • Star Wars: Battlefront
  • Star Wars: Battlefront II
  • Star Wars: Battlefront
  • Star Wars: Battlefront II
  • Star Wars: Battlefront
  • Star Wars: Battlefront II

Battlefront, Battlefront 2, Battlefront and Battlefront 2 are good, but Battlefront and Battlefront 2 are not good.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

I concur. At least the logos for the bad ones have "EA" in the middle of them so that you know which ones to avoid.

billiam0202,

You’re so god damn wrong. Battlefront 2 was far and away better than Battlefront 2 and I’ll fight anyone who says differently.

I do agree that Battlefront 2 was garbage though.

maynarkh, do games w Ubisoft CEO defends Skull and Bones’ $70 price despite its live service leanings, calls it ‘quadruple-A’

“People will really see how vast and complete that game is”

The fact that the CEO has to argue that the game is “complete” says so much about the whole debacle.

Katana314,

Well, it seems like this interview is for investors, not gamers. In that context I think it makes more sense.

boatsnhos931, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo

Kirby sucks and blows anyway

nucleative,

(⁠╯⁠°⁠□⁠°⁠)⁠╯⁠︵⁠ ⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

Oh, nvm, sorry

┬⁠─⁠┬⁠ノ⁠(⁠ ⁠º⁠ ⁠_⁠ ⁠º⁠ノ⁠)

PiratePanPan,
@PiratePanPan@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

This took me back so fucking far I’m so old

NocturnalMorning, do games w Ubisoft CEO defends Skull and Bones’ $70 price despite its live service leanings, calls it ‘quadruple-A’

No thanks, pass. Games as a service with loot boxes and battle passes aren’t my thing.

fluxion,

Not even for a quintuple A game? Sextuple A?

Jiggle_Physics,

Pffft. Our new game is AT LEAST a TREE(3) A game!

thefartographer,

What’s that about sex in my A?

NutWrench,
@NutWrench@lemmy.world avatar

The extra “A” makes it extra AWESOME!

runjun, do games w Max Payne voice actor James McCaffrey has passed away

Oh damn 😞

A truly iconic voice performance that will remain in gaming history.

9715698,

Definitely up there with Michael Ironside as Sam Fisher for me as irreplaceable performances in videogames.

Coelacanth,
@Coelacanth@feddit.nu avatar

I was so happy he got to return for that Ghost Recon cameo. I was pissed at Ubisoft for a while for replacing him for Blacklist, but then it turned out he couldn’t do it for health reasons and just wanted to keep it hush-hush.

I’m glad he’s doing better now, can’t believe he beat three different cancers.

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.

AProfessional, (edited ) do nintendo w Nintendo reportedly showed a demo of the ‘Switch 2’ console at Gamescom which included visuals comparable to the PS5 and Xbox Series X.

Terrible title. “Switch 2 supports ray tracing and will use upscaling” is the summary. Which is obvious, it won’t be anywhere near consoles, it’s like 1/7th resolution.

ieightpi,

Yeah damn click bait titles

jmcs,

That’s not what the article says, the values in the patent are an example. It’s not out of realm of possibility to have something that can match at least the Series S when docked while still supporting a portable mode.

AProfessional, (edited )

Sure, it is a garbage patent anyway, the Steam Deck does upscaling when docked too, woohoo.

This hardware isn’t a mystery, it’s a newer mobile ARM SoC using a newer Nvidia architecture supporting RT and DLSS. It will run at a low resolution. Probably max of 1080p, probably plenty of 720p on more demanding games. All upscaled.

And to be clear that’s fine, it is what a Switch 2 was always going to be.

bermuda, (edited ) do gaming w Todd Howard wants Elder Scrolls 6 to be ‘the ultimate fantasy-world simulator’

I think it would be very funny if the game came out and was good. Like Bg3 level good. Just the irony of everybody going “not Todd doing his bullshit again” and it turns out to be a perfect game or something.

And for the record I’m not a huge Bethesda fan.

Edit: I’m astonished I even have to say this, but this is just a stupid joke comment. I’m not trying to make comparisons between baldurs gate 3 and a game that hasn’t even come out yet. Don’t dig that deep.

mercury,

I’m not into fantasy at all, but it’s would be so funny seeing people cope about the game being good. But let’s be real, if it’s still on creation engine, it won’t be.

Bal,

The engine’s name has very little to do with the tech in it, much less the quality of the game. It might well suck but it won’t be because of this.

Kolanaki, (edited )
!deleted6508 avatar

I agree the name means nothing. Which is why when people go gaga over Creation, I have to remind them it’s still GameBryo, but with more graphical features tacked on to it. The foundation of shit that is GameBryo is still at the heart of the tech driving their games. If Bethesda’s games were buildings, they all build them on a foundation of sand.

I also agree it’s not the reason why their games suck (their games in and of themselves tend to not suck), but it will be the reason why it performs like shit or has the same technical issues that have existed since they started using GameBryo. Unless even after all the time they’ve spent using the engine they still suck at using it, and that’s the reason they have so many problems.

The only other company and series of games I see having the same stuff holding back making better products because of the engine used is Bohemia with ARMA. They have just kept piling stuff on top of Virtual Battle System and all the problems stemming from VBS are present in the current iteration of the engine. Even the devs themselves hate it, but it would be way more work to make an entirely new engine.

Lols,

from what ive seen, most of the issues with the engine folks have are in fact not issues with the engine

MJBrune,

They are on creation engine 2 with starfield and honestly, we’ll see how much of an improvement it is. I was saying back in fo4 that if they don’t upgrade the engine it would be a flop but it apparently was one of the best selling games at the time.

Sina,

BG3 is a gem in this current age, but if you look at it as an open world game and specifically look at that only, then it’s not even good. (honestly even compared to BG1, the open world aspect is very limited)

bermuda,

I’m not sure why that’s relevant

bionicjoey,

BG3 is a different genre game than TES. Neither tries that hard to be like the other. They’re just both are set in fantasy worlds

bermuda,

I’m not trying to argue that? I’m just making a dumb comment, dude.

Kolanaki,
!deleted6508 avatar

If you look at BG3 as an open world game, I have to question what you think an open world actually is, because BG3 is not an open world game.

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

The worst part is that it wouldn’t be that hard to “up” the level of Bethesda games. More focus on the writing, both story and characters would go a long way.

Dropping the whole “It’s one big world, no transitions.” goal. Make cities huge, with transitions and fill them with stuff and people. More “inhabited biomes” so to speak.

Choice & Consequence. Having different paths the players can go down. Locking players out of certain content and areas because of their choice, isn’t a bad thing. It just encourages multiple playthroughs. As well as adding multiple ways to dealing with a problem.

Not forcing motivation or character upon the player. The “chasing after a loved one” motivation in Fallout is terrible. And being a ‘shiny superman’ in both TES and Fallout is boring. We need more grey-area to move around in.

There’s clearly more that could be added to the list. But these four points alone would elevate their games to a more passable grade.

But this is just my personal opinion.

muse, do games w Hogwarts Legacy has officially cleared Zelda as 2023's best-selling game worldwide
@muse@kbin.social avatar

Hasnt Nintendo like, not released digital sales for TotK? I remember reading that recently.

Not a cope post, I don't care if you play the terf game, just actually curious.

morphballganon,

The terf game?

The owner of the Three Broomsticks is trans… ?

Tattorack,
@Tattorack@lemmy.world avatar

That’s not what “TERF” means.

xkforce,

Theyre trying to argue that JKR being a massive TERF is fine because theres one trans character in the game. The “I cant be racist, I have a black friend” defense.

morphballganon,

I don’t care for JK. But JK didn’t make the game. Hundreds of designers, artists and programmers did. And you think those people should be boycotted because one person is a TERF.

gaylord_fartmaster,

Those people were already paid, and you can make a game about wizards and magic without licensing the Harry Potter IP and further enriching JK Rowling.

xkforce,

She collected royalties from it. It doesnt matter if she had any input or not. Buying that game results in some of that money going into her pocket and I dont want to give her a dime. If she didnt get a dime for it that might be different but as it is she does and she revels in the shit stirring that shes done that resulted in blow back. I cant justify giving that troll the satisfaction of buying products that benefit her financially.

wildginger,

The people who mattered dont get paid based on sales. So, fuck em, they got their bag just fine?

yamanii,
@yamanii@lemmy.world avatar

Maybe in your fantasy world, but in real life when a game bombs the studio gets cut down, downsized, etc. Volition was recently closed because of the bombing of the Saints Row reboot. Avalanche is great studio and I wish them to continue existing.

wildginger,

I dunno what fantasy world youre living in, but here in reality you get downsized and laid off regardless of how good your games do.

Unless youve missed the game trends for the past 4 months?

HowManyNimons,

The artists, programmers etc have already been paid as much as they’re going to get for it.

gaylord_fartmaster,

The “I can’t be racist, my book has a black guy AND an Asian woman!” defense too. Just don’t think too hard about what they’re named lol

gaylord_fartmaster,

Thank god tokenism is here to save the day again.

TwilightVulpine,

When the series creator is vocally advocating to marginalize transgender people and financially supporting other members of the hate movement, it takes more than a token NPC to make up for it.

Most likely that character is an insincere PR move from Warner Bros, but some trans people also pointed out that naming her Miss Ryan was probably done in bad faith. If anything, sounds exactly like the kind of tasteless thoughtless naming that JKR is infamous for.

feedum_sneedson,

don’t care

HowManyNimons,

That’s a good way to get yourself blocked. Bye.

feedum_sneedson,

don’t care

HerbalGamer,
@HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works avatar

Most likely that character is an insincere PR move from Warner Bros,

There was a lot of that shoehorned in that made me wonder if it would’ve made sense in 1800s wizarding world.

garretble, do games w Ubisoft CEO defends Skull and Bones’ $70 price despite its live service leanings, calls it ‘quadruple-A’
@garretble@lemmy.world avatar

[x] Doubt

Cicraft, do nintendo w Nintendo has filed a patent for ‘smart fluid’ joysticks, perhaps to eliminate drift | VGC

Jesus Christ just use the same sticks as everyone else does

slimerancher,
@slimerancher@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t know about Xbox, but drift issue is pretty common in PS5 controller too, and I recall reading that all companies uses sticks from same manufacturer.

Everyone online sings praises of ‘Hall-effect’ sticks, but no one (Sony / MS / Nintendo) is currently using them, probably because of higher cost.

If this works, this will probably solve the issue for Nintendo at least.

vardogor,
@vardogor@mander.xyz avatar

i bought my pack of 10 hall effect sensors for like a couple bucks. i know things scale but my bet would be on planned obsolescence

Callie,
@Callie@pawb.social avatar

It definitely happens with Xbox Series controllers too. Bought a brand new Series controller and a rechargeable pack only for it to get unbearable drift within 5 months

MudMan,
@MudMan@kbin.social avatar

I've had far more stick issues on PS5 than Switch, but that's probably just luck of the draw.

For the record, the patent isn't about removing drift at all, from what I can discern, it's about adjustable resistance sticks.

slimerancher,
@slimerancher@lemmy.world avatar

Well, it’s for new type of sticks, and the design seems to be good for removing drift too.

Virkkunen,
@Virkkunen@kbin.social avatar

But they are, and they all have drift problems.

The quick, easy and convenient solution is moving to Hall effect sticks.

JonDorfman,

Using the larger, potentially more durable, joysticks would mean a larger potentially less portable Switch. Given that portability is the core feature of the Switch I can understand Nintendo’s reluctance to implement them. Especially when other companies are experiencing similar issues with their sticks. In my opinion a novel approach is the way to go here. Hall effect is nice, but it is costly and could potentially present some legal challenges at the moment.

Still,
@Still@programming.dev avatar

the problem with the current switch is that the joycona are unusablely small

Increasing the size neard the size of the steam deck really won’t decrease the portivility as your gonna carry a power adapter and a case with it anyways

JonDorfman,

I find that the JoyCons work fine for most games, granted I have small hands. As for power adapters and carrying cases, I don’t carry an adapter and the case I use is very slim. Just enough to protect from drops really.

nonprofitparrot,

I use both frequently, and the size of the switch is a big feature for me. I carry a low profile case and no power adapter. Increasing the size would be a big mistake in my opinion- it would just be a worse steam deck without some really killer new features. In my opinion they should just offer larger joycons for people who want them!

hook,
@hook@toot.si avatar

@JonDorfman, what legal challenges?

@Cicraft

JonDorfman,

A company already makes hall effect joysticks that are JoyCon sized and they claim to hold a patent for them. I haven’t taken the time to verify, but even if they don’t have a leg to stand on they could still take Nintendo to court.

hook,
@hook@toot.si avatar

@JonDorfman I wonder how they would do that while also not violating patents on JoyCons that I suppose Nintendo has.

I have not checked, but would be surprised if they do not.

JonDorfman,

Nintendo doesn’t hold a patent on the JoyCon joysticks. As far as I am aware they are an off the shelf component.

hook,
@hook@toot.si avatar

@JonDorfman, I did a quick online search for Nintendo’s JoyCon patents, and interestingly found a US one from 2023 (2020 in Japan) about what looks Hall effect analogue sticks:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20230280850A1/

JonDorfman,

That patent is what I was referring to when I mentioned a novel approach.

hook,
@hook@toot.si avatar

@JonDorfman, right, but Hall effect analogue sticks themselves have existed for a long time, so that technology in general (except any novel addition) is (most likely) not patented anymore.

hyperhopper,

To be fair I hope anybody and everybody that has a leg to stand on in court does so and wastes their time and money there.

Nintendo consistently uses it’s legal might in anyi-consumet ways to harm its biggest fans. As somebody that loves Nintendo games, fuck Nintendo.

QuarterSwede,
@QuarterSwede@lemmy.world avatar

As Mudman stated, the article is really about Nintendo patenting analog L3 and R3 so it’s pressure sensitive. No one is making those yet.

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