Eh, skill up had a great take on this. The thing is it’s wayyyyy easier to be a small indie developer than it ever was before. Making a game (or any art) still isn’t easy, it never was and never will be, but it’s viable without a giant publisher in a way it just hasn’t been before.
Its the AA titles that are on the most precarious footing, but I bet even those do ok. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy some AAA stuff time to time, I’ve got a stupid amount of hours in overwatch, but I’ve never once paid for a skin because… why would you?
The thing that’s going to suck is losing the studios like Arkane. Their games weren’t perfect but they were freaking cool, and they basically always got the raw end of the deal. Even Prey(2016), their masterpiece, is the product of corporate bullshitiery they had nothing to do with. So we’re probably going to miss studios like that for a while (as they get re-tasked to fortnite/cod support teams) but “indie” stuff has already been stepping up to fill that void, and is less indie all the time.
Look at Dave the Diver. That’s not exactly an indie studio. They had resources. There’s going to be a gap for a bit, but there’s still a demand for good games and art. Those AA breakthroughs are what people want. Again, I continue to spend dumb amounts of time on overwatch, but it’s not where I spend my money. Microsoft hovelled themselves by buying all these studios and not taking the leap with supporting them. Distribution just doesn’t have the value it once did. So if microsoft wants to become CandyCrush, feeding an addiction loop to grab the whales, sure, whatever, but there’s plenty of bread out there for studios doing other stuff.
The one and only point that I disagree with you on is your take on mtx. They may not affect you, but everything about them is designed to be psychologically exploitative, and the wealthy whale is largely a myth. The vast majority of money from mtx is made from people with addiction issues and other mental health issues or atypical neurology, like people with depression or ADHD.
Microsoft bought up all those studios and didn’t support them, but that’s business as usual for Microsoft, and the money that they’ll make from mtx like this will more than make up for it. I recently watched a former Blizzard dev who was talking about how a single $15 mount for WoW made more money than StarCraft 2 did.
The big issue I see is that most people largely don’t know about anything beyond the big AAA releases, and as we’ve already established, that’s an exploitative wasteland nowadays. There’s plenty of demand for good games and there always will be, but while the indie scene is the best that’s it’s ever been, the majority of indie companies go under after their first game. It’s still hard out there for them, too. There’s just enough of them popping up and putting out truly great games that they can actually compete with the AAA space.
It was Thor from pirate software on Twitch talking about the mtx beating SC2 for folks who care great guy to watch if you want to chill and hear some good life advise.
oh yeah, I didn’t want to be dismissive of the mtx stuff. It’s absolutely predatory and awful, but I don’t think it fully stands in the way of developing good games.
Which is related to what you’re saying about indies going under even after success. Game development takes time, and you need money to underwrite that time. I just think there’s going to be a split; right now AAA studios are shitifying their games, turning them more into CandyCrush skinner boxes. But the demand for good games hasn’t gone away, there’s just less financial upside than making CandyCrush. My point is, even though it’s less money, there’s still a good amount of money to be had there. Eventually the gaps going to be filled. Microsoft cant fill it because on the balance sheet, things like COD and anything from King are where they should be focused. And it sucks right now because they sucked up a stupid amount of talent and thanos snapped them, but thats not a sustainable practice.
But yes, it’s going to be painful. It’ll suck seeing really nifty indie stuff have to struggle so hard. Like I said I’m also going to miss the polish that comes with AA stuff. I’m going to miss the hell out of Arkane. Their games weren’t perfect, but they had so much soul. They didn’t deserve to have Redfall be their epitaph.
I kind of feel like anyone who spends $20 on a video game skin shouldn’t be allowed to make any financial decisions for themselves. Like, it was a test and you failed.
Except that shit is designed by literal psychologists to prey upon people with poor fiscal responsibility, like people with ADHD, depression, addiction issues, and kids.
It’s like blaming people for smoking cigarettes after they got addicted from secondhand smoking.
It’s fucked because there are people buying that shit, in numbers that turn a profit over the cost of developing it. And it’s a very low cost because the skin support is something they put in when they make the game, and then get an intern to shit out a gaudy skin.
If you don’t like it you’re obviously not the target demographic anymore. It’s mobile gaming tactics creeping their way on PC.
I mean, maybe disk drives are outdated, but being unable to buy used games or give your old game to a friend is garbage (but great for profits of the console manufacturers and game studios). Not to mention that as long as it’s a digital download, you don’t own the game - you lease it at a flat rate.
Limiting the options and ownership rights of the consumer for profit is bad.
Not to mention that as long as it’s a digital download, you don’t own the game - you lease it at a flat rate.
not true all the time. Plenty of games once you have the files are easily able to run. KSP is one such example. I can just copy the KSP folder to any computer and play the game.
Its the devs choice to require things like Steam to validate the game etc.
That’s fair. It often is the case though, and I think many people don’t consider that as being a problem because it just doesn’t occur to them.
I think Valve is an example of a company that does it well, since you can download the game if Steam were ever to go under, etc. and you can add non-steam games to steam. It’s almost unavoidable that they do it well, though, since steam is running on PCs (mostly).
But Nintendo does it badly. If Nintendo decides to stop supporting Switch downloads, my digital content will vanish (unless I root my switch, etc. but then I may as well just pirate everything). But, at least nintendo has a card reader for their games - if they got rid of it, I’d never truly own any Switch game and would also be forced to pay massively inflated priced for re-released old games, crappy switch ports, or Nintendo titles which almost never decrease in price or go on sale.
One of my biggest annoyance is when you have multiple switches on a family account. If you use cartridges local co-op (or whatever it is called) requires two copies of the game (a cartridge in each). If you have the downloaded versions/digital download, then any device on the Nintendo account (ie: 2 switches for kids on a family account) can play against each other locally.
I don’t think you can cache/save a cartridge to a device to be able to do their local play feature (ie via ad-hoc connections in a car)
This article is about consoles, not PCs. Good luck copying your console game to another folder on the HD.
Even disk-based games on newer consoles often don’t include the full game; in many cases they’re just an installer, really, which then requires downloading the bulk of the files from the net.
PS4 console data you can back up Backing up your data regularly is a great way to ensure that important data is saved. You can back up the following types of data saved to a USB drive.
Games and apps
Saved data
Screenshots and video clips
Settings
All user data saved on your PS4 console (excluding trophies) is included in the backup data. When you restore your backup data, your PS4 console is reset, and all data saved on your console is erased. If you want to return data without restoring your console, use USB extended storage or cloud storage.
I tried copying game data when we were replacing our PS4 hard drive, but it just caused a lot of problems (with games having to “verify” the installation when launched, which was a very lengthy process, probably longer than just re-downloading it would have been; I don’t know what it was actually doing). We were able to preserve save data, though.
For me, this was because the PS4 uses USB 2.0 that caps out at 480 Mbps. It was basically doing checksums of the backup files vs the restored and it just took time, even when the backups I had it running on were a sata SSD.
Funny enough that was already possible on the PS3, so it's a matter of control rather than technological limitation. They use the excuse of "technological progress" to close the walled garden even more.
Even disk-based games on newer consoles often don’t include the full game
That's pretty rare despite being constantly mentioned in this thread. I can think of a few that are strictly multiplayer games or the Master Chief Collection which is just a huge net installer disc.
Otherwise games still become gold and are playable start to finish off disc. Switch games on the other hand have quite a few that require a download.
Other games i know that do this are factorio (you are able to download the game as a zip, and it doesnt stop you from making as many copies as you desire)
That’s not a bug, it’s a feature. They want to sell you digital version specifically because you can’t resell them. It could easily be solved by creating a digital marketplace, and even turn a profit for the publishers by taking a cut of resales.
With how games work these days, having just the disk is pretty much useless if the publisher decides to delist or discontinue the game from platform, because:
patches and updates don’t come with disk form anymore.
many games that requires online authentication to play won’t be available to keep playing if their account service is down.
games go on sale with steady rate most of the time(except nintendo), for bargain bin deals you would probably find the game on humble bundle or gog.
you often have the good games that release “better” remake version over and over anyway. Note, I know people sometimes prefer the original version, but not everyone is on the same page and it hugely depending on the dev/publisher for the newer version.
Now let’s describe the cons:
in many countries, breaking DRM is illegal. So even if all you want to do archive, you can’t make a decrypted copy. That’s why homebrew etc provides the key/dumper for you to do such at your own risk. IMO, it’s safer(INAL) to download pirated iso/rom compare to doing your own dump. And, archiver actually tried to keep a post patch version before store is closed down(see wiiu store close example), the disk version is not a viable option anymore for archiver.
storage up keep, physical things require storage space. I still have like 3 large shipping box for my older gen(ps3/GC/Wii/X360 games) I will probably donate them to library or something and keep the only ones I wanted to keep.
console part cost, the BD drives are often first point of failure, then HDMI connectors. Cause well, moving parts are easier to break and harder to QA. PS5’s 2 versions gives a good example how the disk affects the look, weight, etc. Not to mention, they are a lot slower then SSD and you are required to install all that anyway.
developer/publisher/platform see nothing for used game sales. It sounds like huge shill talk but let’s be honest, they want to make a living, if you are not supporting your favorite developer they will have to offset the cost by doing shit you all won’t like. ie, mtx, subscription service, selling analytic data, selling the studio to shit publisher that push worth practice, platform raise price to meet target projection. Buy/sell used game only helps that service owner(gamestop/ebgame/bestbuy, not the community.)
did I mention switching disc just to play game is a PITA, and if your case is the modern garbage version, remember those plastic break down more easily and you would have to buy new case to hold your disc.
environment waste for all the manufacturing, packaging and shipping. It’s honestly not worth that in modern era if you give a fuck about how future generation will live.
This sounds like a console user problem. PCs haven’t had disc drives for years and the games are far cheaper. Yes, there’s no second-hand market, but with steam sales, humble bundles, and all the freebies I post in !freegames it’s not really become the corpo hellscape we feared.
Also technically you don’t own games on disc either, it’s just much harder for the publisher to come round your house and snap your copy!
Group announces fan remake. Group get cease and desist. Internet tells them they should have just dropped it one day out of the blue. A tale as old as time. Im sympathetic. But its idiotic to announce a fan remake of anything unless you have the written consent of the owners. (and even then its risky because they can always revoke those permissions at random)
According to Wikipedia it started out as a mod, Valve asked them not to give it a name too similar to their own Half-Life Source, then later Valve approached them and suggested a commercial release!
In Valve’s case it’s just a smart move both for PR and business. Black Mesa isn’t competing with any of their products since I’m sure not many younger people are super interested in the original. In fact the remake might drum up interest by some people to play the original. And it’s sold on Valve’s platform, giving them a cut. Win win.
The announcements of fan works are always to drum up more fans to contribute to the work. And honestly 99/100 it doesn’t result in legal threats, it makes sense to do. Fan works don’t get made in secret, in secret they get to version 0.01 and sit on one person’s hard drive for a decade
“Microsoft wants to charge rent on all games on all platforms.”
Gamepass is like early Netflix. It’s a good value now. But once it reaches a large enough subscriber base, it fundamentally takes over publishing. Everyone copies the model because consumers are trained not to buy, and you wind up literally unable to buy things outright anymore.
Don’t think it happens? Try watching the Willow TV series on Disney Plus.
I hate paying perpetual rent in items I should own. I recognize gamepass is a good value, but still would rather own a game forever than see Nintendo and Sony take this same approach.
Yep, I’ve seen this film before - and I didn’t like the ending.
Played this game with Netflix. It kills be because all of these kids think I’m stupid for not buying game pass. That I’m old for wanting to own my games. Except it’s just a teaser, it’s obviously a loss leader for Microsoft. They want it on all screens because that’s how monopolies work. As soon as it’s everywhere they’ll jack up the price and start removing content - but by that point there’s no where else to get the content. You either end up paying twice (or more) for the game you wanted - or you just lose it forever.
Nah it won’t be like that - in future you will get to subscribe to multiple services Sony, Microsoft, Epic, Ubisoft, EA, etc to play the games you want!
You forgot, DLC 1 is exclusive to Epic and DLC 2 only on Microsoft store. If you buy on Sony you however get the exclusive Marvel Quest which everyone says is the best in the whole game but only available if you bought the prequel on Sony store too.
Even if we stick to the games, it's already literally impossible to buy the mobile Into The Breach. It's available exclusively within the Netflix subscription.
Piracy is important to protect the legacies of material for exactly this reason. It used to be just that items physically degraded, now they’re being deliberately removed.
Since I’ve started routinely pirating shows I no longer have to ask the question, “is this show available?” Because if I’ve heard of it then someone has uploaded it.
And when it grows the games will only be on game pass and you will buy a thin client and own no games. They dont need to worry about anti trust as you can access it on any platform.
Seven dollars to loading screen to your ship, watch an animation of your character sitting down, loading screen to space, loading screen to the system it’s in, Dodge some pirates, loading screen to the surface, hop along the completely barren landscape to go to a copy pasted outpost, loading screen back to your ship?
I feel like you could get all of the value of that dlc by just playing a mission over again.
This…this right here is the reason I quit playing this game, the reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was just too fucking disjointed, you are so right.
I didn’t make it very far in to the game, I’d held on to my game pass subscription just waiting for it to come out, and cancelled my game pass after a few hours in Starfield. I made it to like the first big city a few small settlements after that, and everything felt so fucking lifeless. NPCs just didn’t seem to belong in the space they inhabited. Oblivion and Skyrim NPCs really seemed like they owned the space they inhabited. Fallout 4 even once you got your settlements going really felt like they were home. The constant loading screens just made everything feel like it’s own little universe, apart from the rest of the game. I did have fun raiding some base around the moon, one of the few times I had fun exploring. One of the few times I had fun, honestly.
The most fun I had in Starfield was probably a zero-G fight at one point, can’t remember if it was the main storyline or not. But I got as far as the final main quest line fight, after which New Game+ would become available. I realized before going into it that…I just didn’t care. And I am not one to experience the sunken cost fallacy. So I just logged out, canceled Xbox PC Game Pass, and did something else.
I haven’t played this so take my 2 cents with a pinch of mixed metaphor.
My assumption for this game was that DLC would be new copy pasted outposts, weapons, etc. That’s the way a lot of procedural games go. It’s not bad really, you take a good core game and pump it full of new set pieces and toys til hell freezes over.
I’m enjoying the absolute fuck out of this game - hundreds of hours already and no regrets. This game is a lot deeper than anyone gives it credit for, it’s fantastic, and I’m looking forward to more of it.
No Man’s Sky bores the hell out of me and yet I’m having so much fun exploring planets and raiding pirate bases and being surprised by handbuilt content in what I thought would be a procedurally generated dungeon. Not to mention the surprisingly deep side and faction quests. Oh and so many hours playing with the shipbuilder.
I’m sorry you’re not having fun guys. But maybe you should focus on things that are fun for you?
Agreed, at first I wasn’t excited about it but as the quests opened up I was in. I’m on the “new game+” right now and seeing what else I can mess up lol.
My quests tend to end in a lot of shooting innocents… I don’t know why that keeps happening. It can’t be anything I’m doing…
The only thing I said about NMS was that it bores me. The story is thin and nonsensical, characters are nonexistent. It’s a great sandbox with impressive technical merit, but that’s not enough to keep me engaged.
Outer Worlds is pretty good but it’s an Obsidian title, for better or worse. The game world is bleak and terrible and it’s not any better at the end. Their writing is good and their characters are fantastic, and I enjoyed my time with the game but once I was done with the story, I couldn’t find much reason to keep playing.
Starfield, on the other hand, is really big and really deep. There is a crap ton of hand-built content - seriously, hundreds of hours in and I’m still struggling to see it all. The four faction quests feel like separate games in themselves. Starship building is awesome. Outpost building is overwhelming and little pointless, but still fun if you like that kind of thing. Yes, there’s a bunch of planets with generated content, but it’s surprisingly varied. There’s a ton of variation in flora and fauna and even the generated dungeons. There’s a few times i went to an abandoned something or other expecting just some pirates or something and ended up with a huge cinematic fight and loads of what seems to be hand-built content. Best of all, you can play the game how you want.
Don’t like planet scanning? You don’t have to. Hate the UC or Freestar Collective, fine you don’t need to do theor quests. Hate the ship builder? There’s plenty you can buy. Hate outpost building? Great, you can ignore it. Want to ignore the main quest and go be a pirate for a while? Go for it. The Crimson Fleet even gives you a couple of companions you can use if you hate how goody goody the Constallation folks are. This game rewards roleplaying choices more than any other beth title I’ve ever played.
Also, no spoilers but the New Game + mode is legitimately innovative. The story actually continues through it in wierd and wonderful ways. This is a game I’ll easily still be playing for years.
But my only advice is that you have to give it some time. It has a slow start and it’ll take a few hours to really start to click. So if you don’t want a game you have to spend a lot of time on, Outer Worlds will be a quick romp.
Sadly I’ll never get to enjoy it, I’m not gonna buy an Xbox just to play it. Really really stupid that we’re still doing exclusive games in 2023. I’m a PlayStation user literally wanting to give Bethesda my money, but they don’t want it.
Of course they do, games are bloodline of a console and you think M$ gonna give a game made by it to a direct competitor? It’s like Apple allow other phone OEMs to use iOS
I think it’s dumb to deny themselves the fuckton of money that PlayStation users would have paid to buy the game, and that I would guarantee you that they didn’t sell even close to enough consoles to make up for it considering it’s a pretty shit game to begin with.
They could have recouped some of their money from it, but no- it’s a flop now.
Most of the “sale” of this game comes from xbox pass and that’s enough for M$. Xbox is already being outsold so giving Sony more advantage for a little recoup is stupid strategy.
As a PS person myself I don’t feel like we have the right to complain about exclusives! I’m pretty sure Sony has had way more than Xbox ever had and I am fine with it. In today’s market the only thing a console may have as an upper hand is an exclusive game. At least with Xbox games these days you immediately have the option to play on PC, which is what I do if I really want to play one, unlike Sony which has just started doing pc for exclusives but you are going to wait 1 or 2 years before it drops.
I like buying a PS every generation because I know it will have the best exclusives to play just like I have a switch because it’s the only place to play a Nintendo game. If they didn’t have those games why would anyone even bother buying a console at all? If they all shared the same games 100% it would be a coin flip to whatever platform you invest in at that point.
Since the starfield exclusivity thing started, this point has always stuck with me: PlayStation owners buy PlayStation because of the expectation that they will get the best exclusives (and even most other games first). It was so bizarre to see them so brazenly attack Xbox over making starfield exclusive. They couldn’t see that they were beneficiaries of these same tactics for so long that they just accepted it as “the way it is.” Logically, why would you ever buy an Xbox if PlayStation gets better exclusives and the other great games first? No one should be surprised when TES6 is Xbox/PC exclusive.
You can see how those two things are a little different though, right?
PlayStation buys smaller studios, usually that they have history with, and helps them to build games from the ground up - even new IP’s.
Microsoft bought a major studio that had a game near completion, a game that the studio fully intended on releasing on all platforms, and Microsoft exclusified it.
To be clear, I actually don’t like exclusives at all. But there’s still clearly a difference here, and I can understand where people are coming from when they criticize Microsoft and not Sony.
I don’t understand the difference honestly. Investment is investment. I think it’s stupid to do exclusives, but if one is going to build a walled garden then the other needs one too.
I’m PC only so I don’t give a fuck. I can emulate a Switch and eventually I’ll be able to emulate a PS5. If they want exclusives, they don’t want my money. If they stop building walled gardens then great.
I think it’s stupid to do exclusives, but if one is going to build a walled garden then the other needs one too.
I agree, but how you go about that is important imo. I’m on PC too, so let me use a better example that might hit closer to home.
Epic games. Their use of exclusives has garnered more hate then almost any other storefront in the pc space. But it’s not the exclusives in and of themselves - after all, people never cared when Fortnite didn’t come to Steam. Similarly, nobody lost their minds when The Sims was exclusive to Origin, or Assassins Creed to Uplay.
The difference between these games, as opposed to other Epic exclusives, is that these games were built by these companies from the ground up. Nobody cares if Fortnite is an Epic exclusive because Epic made that game - it’s their right to keep it to themselves. The same goes for the Sims with EA, and Assassins Creed with Ubisoft.
It’s only when Epic snatches nearly completed games that they had nothing to do with, that people get angry. So in this way, Microsoft is the Epic games of the console scene, while Sony is more akin to Ubisoft or something.
You can see how those two things are a little different though, right?
No, not really. Contrary to your point, Bethesda has worked quite closely with Xbox a number of times (especially back in the oblivion days) and Sony has never been interested in Bethesda’s ideas about games (support for Skyrim was abysmal on PlayStation and mods on PS3/4 were a joke).
Is MS a huge jerk for yanking starfield out of the hands of the majority of console gamers? Yeah totally, but Sony is also a huge jerk (and has been) for a long time when it comes to negotiating exclusivity deals, which they have been able to do because they are the number 1 console. It’s really not hard to extrapolate how much leverage Sony has over the industry when you see that they have sold 75% more consoles than xbox (35 vs 20 million units sold PS5/XS). I believe the previous gen was even worse. The outcry over this would have been much smaller if the roles were reversed, because it would have just been business as usual for every gamer.
And I’m not going to buy a Playstation just to play The Last of Us, Spiderman, Detroit: Become Human or any of the other games Sony refuses to sell Xbox users.
I’d love to play those games but Sony just doesn’t want my money.
Same. I’ve got thousands of hours in Skyrim. It’s my favourite game of all time. But I’m more into sci fi than fantasy generally and Starfield is shaping up to be everything I would’ve asked for. It’s taken over my life and I have no regrets. Bethesda smashed it again.
Those are handmade, and it’s honestly the issue. If the bases were procedural out of descrete hand made chunks, it’d be less repetitive. There seems to be about five bases for the procedurally placed content, and once you’ve done it once it gets dull. It’s not even like they made furnature procedural or anything like that to change up the looks. They could have at least made different doors locked procedurally so you have to take different routes each time.
Yep. Not every game needs to be a huge open world (or in this case galaxy.) Give me tight well written games that are complete on launch, that’s all I’m asking for.
I got this on sale, because I liked the original games premise but didn't want to buy a MP-only game. I've yet to play it though. XD I hope it lives up to expecations.
Helpful hint, it's not just video game programming. Those hijacked gas pipelines in the US, unsecured SCADA systems weren't because every sysadmin was falling asleep, it's because nobody pulling the trigger wanted to listen to the sysadmins screaming that blindly deploying shit without audits, was a bad idea.
In pretty much every single technological failure, there's usually a common thread. Someone did (or forgot to do something) in the name of profit.
Have a VP wanting to ram a newly acquired Europe entity through a migration and I am just yelling in every meeting about regulations. No one gives a shit so I’m just making them sign everything they say. CYA in full deployment.
On the acquired side, currently going through integration. We had a looking date to cutover a major portion of our systems and it was absolutely only a fail forward situation if it went south. Surprisingly, they recognized and listened to us saying it wasn’t ready and needed more time…got us six more months but definitely a rare moment from my experience in IT. Hopefully a sign that the new company knows what they are doing.
I can side with what you’re saying, but I don’t understand how forgetting something in the name of profit in other industries has anything to do with the pace of game development.
It fails downwards. And I know that doesn’t make sense but when you push something through as fast as possible everything below it falters.
QA is garbage, QC is garbage, development becomes garbage because of those fast timelines because something has to be cut. You can’t do everything you need to do with shorter timelines - and that’s where it becomes “in the name of profit”.
Just that it’s fairly similar across other industries. It’s a pretty common thread in most industries when people try to force things through without planning properly.
Also I wasn’t ranting about other industries, just making a note that it occurs everywhere. Profit for profit sake has made a lot of industries worse, including the gaming industry.
Edit: do you think QA/QC and development work only occurs in the gaming industry?
Many modern AAA games has become glorified toilet paper rolls. They tried to keep manufacture then in hopes to milk everything possible, then when you are at the end of roll they hype and sell you a new one. Make them feel like you absolutely have to play the next installment to get a closure or something new branching out.(prequel/sequel/reboot/timelines/etc.)
It was unsustainable at the pace and amount pre-covid, unhealthy for hardcore gamers as well. We have to actively not buying and playing new games cause I can play certain amount per day/week.
With covid and post covid, I actually finished more games compare to before. Well, the extra 2 hours not needed to commute I can do whatever I wanted.
This only works because it’s like $30. If this was a $60-70 game, I don’t think it goes over well with the public. Nintendo is the only one that seems to get away with that
I think that’s exactly the point though. “We didn’t mark it up to mark it down, the price is just the price”. As a chronic patient gamer part of me hates that (I love finding older classics for like $10) but I don’t mind shelling out for a good game. The biggest expense is my time, and if a bunch of years later the price hasn’t moved it’s probably worth my time.
Yeah a lot of these entertainment companies forget that they need to earn my business with high quality product AND services, otherwise I will take matters into my own hands.
This aint like housing and work, where they can just fuck you as if they are your prison guards. We got options baby!
I got starfield for free with my video card, and I still feel ripped off and wish I could refund lol.
But yeah, I’m not dropping a single goddamn penny on Starfield. It feels like a game that was made for the xbox 360 or something, with all the loading screens and shit.
I’d say it’s remarkably consistent how gamers will pick up on budget reductions and cost cutting in games. This isn’t the movies, we aren’t going to just spend 2 hours with a piece of media where some editing handwaving can get us to ignore or not even notice something. These are 40-120 hour games here, we’re going to notice when business stepped in to tell the creative folks to drop something.
Even Hogwarts, a game that I 100%'d, was obviously affected by that. The fucking Merlin Trials. Revelio? You can’t tell me there wasn’t some committee decision that was “We have this big open world, just throw those in every 100 feet or so to make it feel active”. The more corners are cut, the more gamers will notice. They can bank on that.
Yeah exactly. Also annoying things like “let’s change this concept that works by adding stuff that’s in fashion but doesn’t fit the game at all”. Like Battlefield 2042, the concept of Battlefield stayed relatively the same throughout years and releases and it just worked, but they just had to include heroes this time because hero shooters were popular. It doesn’t matter that it meant there were only doppelganger heroes running around instead of an actual army of soldiers.
I believe bullshit like this is exactly what made Suicide Squad such a let down.
This is implying HL was a good game, which it wasn’t. It was just a good looking game with a popular IP.
Still, your comment is mostly correct, but bad games can do well with luck or the right strategy, and sometimes good games fail because they don’t get the support they need.
Don’t be overdramatic. It’s a good game, certainly above average. Just because it’s not the game you expected it to be doesn’t make it terrible. This reminds me of the ridiculous hyperbole surrounding Cyberpunk 2077, that it was a terrible game, even “one of the worst games of all times”, because it wasn’t the second coming of Christ either, just a good RPG with teething issues.
No, it’s terrible. The combat is fine, and the Hogwarts section is alright, but everything else sucks. Doing the same thing dozens of times just because they didn’t have time or creativity to fill out the world sucks. The random loot system sucks.
I think the biggest thing (for a Hogwarts game) is how little they seem to care about the world it’s set it. Some of it seems like they care, but then they do things like having the groundskeeper tell you how to open locks and to break curfew (although there literally isn’t a curfew besides this mission). You go and break into people’s houses or into places you “aren’t allowed” only for literally no one to care or even notice. You can use dark magic, even in Hogwarts and on students, and no one cares. There’s so much that’s just hollow.
I really wanted to like the game. It’s a bad game though. It’s not just a game I don’t like. It’s a bad game. I could write so much more (and have), but I think what I’ve listed here is enough.
I’m a big fan of Indies as well and have been for far longer than the advent of the modern Indie game, but occasionally, I want to use that humongous RTX card for more than just machine learning and offline renders, indulge myself in the wasteful spectacle and grandeur of big AAA productions. Large open world games in particular are outstanding for virtual tourism. For all its faults, Hogwarts Legacy does provide this in spades.
The game itself clearly doesn’t, going by the character creator. Some of the money made from it does end up in the hands of a virulent transphobe though, that’s true.
“Good” and “bad” games are not something that the business wankers can see on a PowerPoint. They already ordered their devs to make a good game and that didn’t work. They know pay-to-win mobile trash makes money, so they’re ordering their devs to make that instead.
Only if you don’t buy the Season 1 Vault-Tec Access Pass for $49.99. Imagine not doing that and then not ever being able to get your Overpowered Armor at pass level 5. You would absolutely be ruining it for yourself by not investing into the seasonal passes.
Look the perk system was bad but it’s wasn’t Fallout New Vegas bad. It was okay for a Fallout game but they probably should’ve done level ups by doing each 5 levels gives you 2 SPECIAL points to spend rather than spending normal points on the core stats.
As an RPG player, people kept saying I should play Fallout, but I never have because it always looked more like a shooter than an RPG, and I want to play an actual RPG, not a shooter with RPG elements (especially because I despise shooters).
In all the previous shooter Fallouts, you can basically use VATS to never have to aim yourself if that’s what you want to do (or melee build!), it’s like an auto-aimer. You won’t miss that much and maybe that way you can enjoy the universe.
Fallout 3 was all around an inferior game. Not just an inferior fallout, but an inferior game, compared to 4.
Mostly cause Fallout 3 was a disjointed mess.
But just because Fallout 4 is better by comparison, Doesnt mean fallout 4 is good.
I hate beets. But give me the choice between a bowl of shit and a bowl of beets, and put a gun to my head? I’ll eat the beets gladly and happily. Doesnt mean I love them.
Neither is shit. 4 is way better. 1, 2, and New Vegas are better still. But 3 doesn’t tend to come up in these conversations when people talk about Bethesda Fallouts being worse. They always go to 4, and that surprises me.
Fallout 3’s world doesn’t feel like Fallout but the tone of the writing comes close.
Fallout 4’s tone and writing doesn’t feel like Fallout, but the world does.
New Vegas is the only 3D Fallout game that feels like Fallout in both the world and the writing.
I can almost guarantee that unless Josh Sawyer and the other original talent that made 1, 2, and tactics that also worked on New Vegas are working on it, it will never feel like a true Fallout game.
I would love for Obsidian to get another crack at Fallout, but I don’t think they are the only ones capable of making a good fallout game (though they would undoubtly be the best).
It just takes passion for the property, and a vested interest in the world. Something Bethesda is clearly lacking. Bethesda seems to be in the phase of “throw darts at a bunch of sticky notes on the wall” of trying to figure out how to make a game, and it just leads to a disjointed experience.
Obsidian is off doing things and making games better than Fallout, they’d only come back because their studio isn’t extremely profitable and needs the cash.
Really though, please just go buy their games and play them. Outer Worlds got slated as pretty average but I’m still really excited to play that and Outer Worlds 2.
I liked Outer Worlds, but while I do see some “NV magic” there, it feels like both Bethesda AND Obsidian are no longer the same companies that they once were. Obsidian are still quietly putting out some solid games…but not to the same quality of two generations prior.
The only bad thing about it is idiot gamers heard the basic premise, and that Obsidian was making it, and immediately stroked their hype boners up over “OMG NEW VEGAS IN SPACE!” when it was nothing of the sort.
For me it’s the fundamental difference in design philosophy. Bethesda does power fantasies, which works great for TES, but not for Fallout. You should be barely scraping by, not making the wasteland your bitch.
Once you take high school English your teacher will tell you not to write “in my opinion” in front of everything you write because it is unnecessary. Of course it is your option, you said it.
Someone with basic logic can extrapolate from that that if someone says something like “Fallout 4 is bad” that is clearly someone presenting an opinion and not an objective truth.
I hate having discussions. Opinions aren’t allowed to be held because theres always some entitled ass that has to come in and misrepresent what everyones saying so they can fulfill their personal fantasy of being offended and attacked.
"I'm old, stubborn, don't know how to manage remote teams, and have no interesting in learning." - Todd Howard
Every time this guy opens his mouth, it sheds so much light on Bethesda's decades-old problems.
Edit: I'm looking forward to seeing what Ted Peterson, Vijay Lakshman, and Julian Lefay do with The Wayward Realms. These three are the actual fathers of The Elder Scrolls. Todd has been shitting on their legacy since Redguard.
AAA studios were used to having local build farms, in-person build-review sessions, and testers being in the same physical space so engineers could see what’s going on. They have collections of unreleased hardware that need to be distributed and secured.
It’s not simple to completely overhaul a setup like that and go full remote. You’re moving 100s of GB a day to each dev and trying to change every one of your processes.
Every AAA engineer I know complained about how how slow everything was remote. Studios are figuring that shit out now, but I don’t think “hurr durr Todd Howard old” is really accurate or adding anything to the conversation here
My current management has no idea as well and it has made it impossible to get anything done. We have 3 status meetings per day, with 3 different audiences, led my 3 different people, for 1 project. And we have multiple projects going on being managed like that. We have more managers and PMs than developers working on stuff. They have left 0 time to do any real deep work. If they’d leave everyone alone for even a couple days per week productivity would soar.
I have slowly faded away from those daily meetings and my rate to address issues increased. Working and supporting 2 different projects while doing extra research topics to future proof our tech or migration path. I do still have those weekly meeting though but my work pace have been better without the daily ones.
Even my manager ask me today if I want to do the biweekly checkup or skip, “well, we did the weekly this morning so I see no point of doing the biweekly.” “Sure, let’s skip.”
Now if I can have my own status board and progress bar on a internal page and tag it with my slack profile, maybe I can skip all the meeting?
There is some truth to remote being worse for engineers especially less experienced programmers that can’t talk to more senior programmers face to face.
This is where tools like Slack Huddles or Zoom come in handy. Need some face time? You are a click away. Need to collaborate on one screen? That’s one more click. Need to pair program? That’s a click.
There is nothing that is done face to face that can’t be done faster, better, and more efficiently using readily available digital collaboration tools.
Sure, the technology is available and it works well (mostly). But people are not machines, and in my experience quite a lot of them are not as comfortable communicating through chat and webcams as they are in person. Older people in particular don’t really get that they can be used for quick, informal conversations, and only use them for preplanned meetings.
So am I :) The “older people” in my comment refer to my former boss and colleagues, and their reluctance to adapt to a remote working environment was a major reason for my departure towards more remote-friendly pastures.
For sure, there were other issues, which were amplified by the distance and the lack of communication. Point is you can come up with the best technical solution to a problem, but at the end of the day if the people aren’t able or willing to adapt, there’s not much you can do except fire them (which I couldn’t) or move on (which I did).
I strongly disagree, I am a software engineer, have worked on the field for over a decade, while I understand that’s not enough to be one of the extremely senior developers but nevertheless I’m a senior software engineer that can answer any and all questions posed from a beginner or even a mid leven engineer. The company I work for pairs developers when they first join so you have someone who’s expected to be there to answer anything, this creates a positive climate and makes new joiners feel safe to come and ask questions, which in the long run makes them feel comfortable with doing the same.
When you send a message to someone on slack he can finish what he’s doing then respond, on an office setting the question will cut your thought line and cause you to lose track of what you were doing. Back when I worked at the office there were days I couldn’t get any work done because after 30min of investigation someone asked me something, then I had to redo the full backtrack of what I was doing only to be interrupted again for something stupid like shown a meme or be asked if I wanted to go out for lunch. The company I worked before my current one got so efficient during COVID that there wasn’t any work left to do, the managers had planned a year worth of projects and we finished them in a few months and they had to rush to try to find things for us to do. However working from home makes micromanaging harder, so managers who want to micromanage make everyone’s life harder (including their own), and then complain that the engineers are producing less.
100% is way too subjective to claim, if I ask someone something and I can review the semantics of how they worded it as many times as I need, I’ll definitely understand it better than if told me it in person and my ADHD brain just missed it
I’d really like Larian to do their own thing and not be an IP slave to WOTC and Sony/Disney though. I loved BG3 but want them to continue making OC. There’s so much rehashed stuff these days, having original content is just so…uncommon in the AAA and AA spaces.
It is! They said they are focusing on smaller projects right now- stuff they are excited to work on. Hopefully, that’s more OC. Good shit either way, though. Larian’s past few games have been solid.
Another game the size and scope of BG3 would probably kill the company, and I can tell people would expect them to make a KOTOR remake of the same size.
It just wasn't that good. Not terrible, but very bland. I put 30 hours in but finally stopped when I realized I wasn't having fun, I was only chasing the idea of fun.
I don't even like DND and I thought BG3's first act put the entire story of Starfield to shame.
Now I'm playing through Phantom Liberty and loving the hell out if it.
I started liberty by accident trying to level up a bit. Figured i would take my leave and come back later only for the dlc to fail because the thing chrashed and person was not saved
Lol the same thing happened to me the first time I tried it.
I went to the assigned area, chatted with the quest NPC, then I wanted to just murder all the hostiles in the area, so I went to find a good sniping spot... and then the quest failed because I left the area. RIP that NPC, RIP Phantom Liberty.
I generally feel the same way about all Bethesda games. I’ll return after some DLC and Mods have been released.
There is some pretty cringe writing and stylistic choices this time around. Space cowboys and Freestar were conceptualized by a child and the PG pirate brigade are embarassing.
There are some bones for a pretty great empire building mod though. Can’t wait to see a sim-settlements type mod for Starfield.
The Ryujin quest line is exactly what I expected the corpo background to be like. It’s too bad the backgrounds/origins aren’t fleshed out enough beyond what is essentially the prologue of Cyberpunk.
They really turned Cyberpunk around it’s so fun. I played maybe an hour of it on launch and was like “what is this shit”, started playing with 2.0 and the story is cool, the characters are rad, the game is beautiful, combat is fun (enemies a bit too spongey for me but not awful, better combat than witcher 3).
I feel like I was so hyped for the Starfield release, but playing it wasn’t as exciting as I thought.
BG3 released and I wasn’t expecting it. But I’ve had such a blast with it that I can’t stop playing.
I want to come back to Starfield later when they have had time to get mod support goin and whatnot. but for now, I have other titles to play to keep me happy.
Glad you understand. It’s great when people on the Internet understand that their backlash against a very popular thing doesn’t matter because the popular thing is still beloved by millions
But it’ll actually cost players $10 because they must purchase 1,000 Starfield creation credits to afford it.
At first, I read this as if you needed to ingest a verification can before you’re allowed to make a purchase. But alas, it is the usual shit where you have to buy their fake money.
That shit is never going away, and for one simple reason: it’s incredibly profitable. By converting real money into some nebulous fun bucks that doesn’t directly correlate in value, they obfuscate how much money you’re actually spending and make it more likely that you’ll spend more than you intend to. The same reason that casinos have no windows and pump extra oxygen into the air so you feel less tired, all so you don’t realize how long you’ve been in there.
Sure it’s profitable, but it’s also (correctly) seen as a manipulative, and some companies have stopped using those.
As I said Nintendo and Xbox store used to do that, but they transitioned to prices in real money quite some time ago, and if they got a wallet, they let you fill it with the exact amount of what you’re buying. Same with PS store, most PC game stores, even freaking playdate catalogue and itch.io where the average payment must be like $3.
I expect that from shitty mobile games, because I know mobile gaming monetization is fucked forever, but I didn’t know major publishers still used that garbage unemptiable wallet strategy.
yep. Never underestimate how stupid the average gamer is.
Then realize half of them are even dumber than that.
Which is why gaming is in the state it is right now, cause a bunch of drooling mouth breathers keep throwing their wallets at problems because god forbid they do without or make a single sacrifice.
Except it’s even worse than that. Because these companies hired psychologists to tell them exactly how to tweak the levers in people’s brains to get them to pay.
So you have the stupid people, but also the people whose brains are naturally wired to be played like a fiddle by these companies, and then on top of that, you have the new generation of gamers who have simply never known a world where you didn’t pay for skins.
Except it’s even worse than that. Because these companies hired psychologists to tell them exactly how to tweak the levers in people’s brains to get them to pay.
Which is where the whole concept of using real money, to buy fake money (and never in the exact amounts that they charge for items), so you obfuscate the actual cost, especially once people start carrying a balance of fake money due to never being able to get the exact amount of fake money for the item came from.
Like Dave and Buster’s play cards and games that cost 7.8 credits (at least right now, higher weekend evenings because of dynamic pricing) and needing to get out a fucking calculator to do the conversion from dollars to points to figure out you are spending $3.72 or whatever to play a single shitty game.
gamespot.com
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