I think as long as these extra packs don’t replace work done by the devs on staff, it’s fine. Here are some things to consider:
While it’s not specifically gig work, many studios already hire contractors to work on games while in development, just to terminate the contracts after launch. This also isn’t unique to the games industry, as companies in many other industries regularly hire contractors for a specific project or duration.
If these content creator and modder packs stopped being sold, they won’t automatically equate to content being produced by the studio instead. The staff may be working on other DLC or expansions, after-launch support, or moved to another project.
The studio may decide to stop officially developing for a game, but community-made packs could be a way for them to add additional content.
I used to play Warframe, and the studio, DE, would regularly add skins that were designed and voted on by the community. The studio still produced their own cosmetics, so it was cool to have additional skins and also support designers in the community. Ultimately, I think we should look at these on a case-by-case basis, as we’ll probably see some studios doing it “right”, while others may lean a little too heavily on modder work.
Look at your nuanced take. I forgot those existed recently lol. I definitely agree that taking it company by company or DLC by DLC makes the most sense. I think I’m partially feeling a little burned by the fact these DLCs seem to have had more care and consideration put into them than some of the official stuff which is just often sooo buggy. Modders have come in and made some unplayable games absolutely magical, and I just worry they are being taken advantage of and us as consumers just don’t know, but it might just be me so used to negative gaming news it’s hard to take things positively anymore lol. I think the warframe model you described seems pretty good seeing as it was cosmetics and there was community involvement, so glad to see it’s been done well in other places too. Thank you for your response!
Frickin Dead Space remake. I’m playing through it now and even on the lowest settings it was pretty bad. My computer crashed while the shuttle was crashing, which honestly felt kind of apt
I’ve never beat the original, but my wife wanted to see the game and has never played it. Even after tweaking things to get them running on my computer it’s still not super stable. We might have to switch to 2008
The game looks super tense, gross, and scary. Personally, I think it’d be scarier if it was buttery smooth, but I guess there’s a certain amount of anxiety to be had wondering if walking through a door is going to freeze the game while I’m being chased by xeno horrors
It ran incredibly well on my machine and looked amazing. This is not a poorly optimized game in my experience. Could it be that it also ran fine on the machines of most reviewers?
It wouldn’t surprise me if reviewers have the budget for top of the line computers. Sadly, that does little to soothe my frustration that my computer - which meets the advertised recommended specs - falls short
Been playing through Tunic this last week and I don't think I've had a game leave me this conflicted in a while. I picked Tunic up on all the recommendations of it being classic Zelda with elements from Dark Souls and that's definitely what I got, for most of the game at least. I also enjoyed the puzzle elements with the manual, trying to decipher what it was telling me based on the images and the odd English word. If there's one thing the game does well it's capturing that feeling of playing a game as a kid and not really knowing what's possible. I had quite a few "Ah-ha!" moments where the game hinted at something just enough to let me figure it out on my own. But then you get to the end-game, the game takes away all your upgrades, and makes you go through a gauntlet of enemies to get them back. I get what they were going for here, but playing through it was just a slog. In theory, I like the idea of being powerless again and having to treat every enemy with caution, but in practice this segment just dragged on for too long,
Another mechanic that overstays it's welcome is the "Holy Cross" mechanic. It's neat the first time you use it and figuring out how to use it on all the sealed doors and golden statues I had seen was fun. But the issue is this is where the game completely changes genres on you, at least if you want to see the true ending. The Zelda/Dark Souls elements are now completely secondary to deciphering the manual and completing the Holy Cross puzzles. Enemies are just obstacles between you and where you have to go to solve the next puzzle, culminating in the Golden Path puzzle, which the true ending is gated behind.
I did enjoy everything up until that point, but once it became about this meta-puzzle and flipping through the manual to solve it I just lost interest. Yeah, I was stuck with the "Bad Ending", but the amount of effort the game wanted me to put in for a cut-scene just didn't seem worth it.
In my experience it’s largely been unreal engine 5 games.
The issues with both Doom DA and Indiana Jones is that they have mandatory ray tracing that can’t be disabled. I generally think that ray tracing is a often a waste, it’s far too resource demanding, other lighting techniques can offer very similar visuals for a fraction of the cost.
It’s a shame, because I liked it more than Monster Hunter, but it’s always online, so it’s inevitable that eventually it stops making money, and the next step is that it disappears forever.
I played it on release and it was a fun time with friends. A few years back Phoenix Labs was bought out by another company, and it was all downhill from there. It really is a shame, Dauntless was a neat game.
I tried it at one point before trying any Monster Hunter games, and I found it really boring. I was legitimately getting drowsy when fighting the second monster and found it much easier to just chug a potion, rather than try to dodge its attacks. Monster Hunter World, on the other hand, was exhilarating from the first large monster you hunt. So… did Dauntless get better as you progressed?
It just got into the core fight, upgrade, fight loop way faster, without any of the tedious mechanics that I didn’t like from Monster Hunter, that I find boring. I played right around its launch on Epic, so who’s to say if we even played the same game, with the way these games can change over time?
Phoenix was the best place I’d ever worked until they came along. Fucking bitcoin bros destroyed everything because they didn’t understand the games industry.
You can blame crypto bros but the original owners sold out. Once a studio has been swallowed up by a conglomerate it is only a matter of time before it turns to shit.
The owners might have had no choice though because they took a ton of venture capital funding.
I’ve realized that it’s best to just avoid any company that takes VC because they will inevitably fuck everyone over.
I wish I could get more into this, but yes there were some major missteps during the covid/post-covid “stocks are crazy high, money is free!” period. After that there just wasn’t really a way to recover.
Unfortunately it’s pretty hard to avoid VC money, the tech industry runs on it.
If you worked on Dauntless, just want to say I appreciate your part! Only played it for a while at release because the grind turned me off but it’s been sad seeing news pop up of how it has been going downhill. Was such a fun game.
Sucks that good game devs get laid off because the leaders are asleep at the wheel unless it involves monetization.
I played Dauntless hardcore in the beta. My team and I really enjoy it and it was going to great but it went to Epic we never gave it another thought. A real pity because the combat was fun. IDK how it evolved but the chainblade started out really enjoyable.
Not really surprising after they destroyed what was left of the game and its community with the most recent update. I’m really not sure why anyone thought that was a good idea
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