Adding a bit more to the discussion on whether game subscription can be “the future”, it looks like despite the heavy push made in the past decade, subscriptions only make up 10% of total video game spending in the US....
PS+ set forward a theme of letting people have game trials - you can download and play for a few hours before needing to buy. I think they want that tied to some kind of invested subscription setup just so that people wouldn’t abuse the system.
It’s easier to avoid abuse if every game has demos coded to end after level 1, but as many old analyses have shown, that takes a huge amount of developer resources.
The issue of downloading 100 GB is something that some publishers have tried to solve with cloud gaming. If you’re only mildly interested in a Game Pass game, you can play it on cloud, and then if you enjoyed your first session, download it locally for the next one.
“We need ideas to find a way to monetize our active playerbase!”
“We already are. They pay us money each month. In turn, we continue to make sure the game is fun and has stuff that keeps them interested.”
“Aha! Carry on.”
I can see how Game Pass popularity could be bad for a number of studios, as he says in the article. But, I’ve never understood how Game Pass’s existence was anti-consumer.
We always get these baffling quotes like “Microsoft insists on renting you your games, and you will like it.” or “I’m not going to be forced to pay $17 a month just to play my games”. GP never gained popularity off Microsoft forcing people into it, people voluntarily signed up, even when MS continues to make their games available for direct purchase.
The previous quote from Ubisoft even seemed more like an investor excuse than a threat to gamers.
Feels kind of weird to have a remaster coming long after a total remake. Granted, I don’t think they remade 2-3, just the first one - and it was for the sake of their small trilogy referencing events from the first game. (I think it went, Legend, then Anniversary (Remake), then Underworld, right?)
I’m not sure how you drew this conclusion, since most people I know consider paying full price to obtain a digital copy to be extremely close to ownership.
I liked Telltale’s Law and Order series. They can’t sell it anymore, but I can still download my digital copy because I bought it full price.
The whole argument in the article is about monthly subscription rentals.
There’s a similar bit in Trails in the Sky I ended up unexpectedly enjoying.
Joshua: “Good luck, Estelle.”
Estelle: “…What do you mean, good luck? You’re coming too, right?”
Joshua: “…Pardon? The plan is using a maid’s disguise. There’s no butlers in that part of the castle.”
Estelle: “So what? You fit GREAT in a dress!”
Joshua: “…Just drop it, Estelle. They only have the one outfit.”
Head Maid: “Well…so actually…”
Joshua: “…no. No, we are NOT doing this!”
Y’all say that, but anytime someone makes even a decent approximation of an Ace Attorney game, I’m out here chasing the high of pointing out contradictions that pin a killer.
I have a story plan I’m tossing around, and trying to decide something around this. It’s nothing so complex - basically, there’s a nation that has historically been extremely homophobic, and as a result, a mid-sized cabal of defectors that the book follows are gay. One of those situations where an observer (in or out of universe) could tiredly claim it doesn’t matter to them, except that it apparently does matter to this fictional nation.
It might be a good time to revisit some other long-running series that have managed a very good “reset” after running dry. Some examples that come to mind are Resident Evil 7, God of War, The Legend of Zelda, maybe some others.
At least for RE7 and God of War, it does feel like their overall goal was to reduce the action-packed scope, and focus more closely on something character-focused. RE7 doesn’t have crashing helicopters, and God of War doesn’t have you killing gods in the first 30 minutes. It definitely felt like an overall goal for FF16 was epic, bombastic scope and throwing around their budget, which obviously drove sales…but not as much lingering popularity as they hoped.
(Oh yeah, and plan a Steam release already. The world is not as console-obsessed as Japan)
Any return to turn-based would probably have to be careful about it. Persona 5 managed it well, but it easily reaches criticism of being too much of “Use fire on ice”. Ideally, every decision a player is making in their infinite-time turns should have some form and consequence to it. I have always hated the “solution” wherein you can turn on an Auto-Battling system. It fixes the problem, but doesn’t acknowledge that the problem is battle decisions always being completely unnecessary and routine, which itself is something that can be fixed using more intelligent game design.
Sales follow the tradition of supply and demand. Products come out at their highest price because of expectations and hype. Then, as interest wanes, the publisher continues to make some sales by reducing price to tempt the less interested parties....
The specific game that gave me the idea for this post was Freedom Planet 2. I remember getting the original as part of one of the early Humble Bundles, and enjoyed it, but never felt compelled to try the sequel.
Something I’ve been missing is having more game stories with fully “melodramatic” character acting - where character A is gasping in tears over the injuries to character B, and won’t ever forgive ruthless villain Y. That was something I remembered FP1 for, for better or worse, and apparently from reviews they improved their craft a bit for the sequel.
I get that to some degree, but also look at it this way.
Developer A spends 10 years and lots of people’s time developing a heartfelt, memorable game, and prices it at $25 - keeping it at that price no matter what changes. Meanwhile, Developer B develops dozens of cheap games chasing crummy junk trends, and charges $60 initially for them, and discounting them down to $10 after two months. Theoretically, Developer A should deserve more of their money. But, many people will often see “83% off” and go for Developer B, even though the game refusing discounts is worth far more of people’s time.
I do think some people only really focus their wallet-voting in one direction. It should be not just avoiding expenditure on bad games, but also volunteering it on good games.
I don’t know if you could call this a positive, but I’ve definitely seen signs that the results of these projects will routinely turn out soulless and flop hard. In the past few years we’ve seen some VERY well-funded projects turn out as total flops. If that’s happening even with human creative input and corrective steering, what should we expect from AI following a straight algorithm?
UPDATE: Despite saying they were using SteamOS on the homepage, they’ve since clarified that it’s actually “an optimized version based on HoloISO”. HoloISO seems to be a community compiled version of SteamOS. It’s very similar but it’s not officially SteamOS....
I remember when I had to use my Steam Deck connected with USBC as a “desktop” for a while. It couldn’t remember to put my taskbar on my preferred monitor no matter what I tried doing.
According to SAG AFTRA, the deal will “enable Replica to engage SAG-AFTRA members under a fair, ethical agreement to safely create and license a digital replica of their voice. Licensed voices can be used in video game development and other interactive media projects from pre-production to final release.”...
I’m torn, because on the one hand, the logistics of constantly recording new lines for minor stuff is really annoying. Imagine you’re playing a live-service game that really needs a certain balance patch, but that balance patch is reliant on a very slight change to a voice line (for instance, reducing the time it takes for a character to perform a special attack. To take an Overwatch example, maybe a certain archer is voicing his ultimate ability too quietly). Having to call someone in just for that is costly and unproductive.
But, we’re talking about delivering the source of someone’s work and livelihood (as well as all their creative influence, exaggerative tones, and delivery) into an algorithm. The line where it would go beyond convenience into worker-reduction efforts is going to be hard to draw.
I would rather that the voice actor retains the rights to their voice, even if it’s put into an AI algorithm. Thus, if the developers want to make a small change to a voice line, they still need to get approval for some AI-generated correction - and the actor would have the right to say “No, that one sounds terrible. I’m only going to agree to re-delivering this one myself.” Similarly, actors could approve limited sets of explicitly-defined live AI usage, for instance pronouncing the player’s name. Granted, some companies would become annoyed at actors being too inflexible, just like they have disagreements with actors today.
I’m definitely worried about too much signing-over of voice identity. I think it’s very easy to cut humans out of the equation that way, which not only damages the health of the industry, but also reduces creative output.
My best guess is that when they first started giving the earliest look at the game, they were (somehow) very surprised at the backlash to their trend-chasing formula; and then, from there, may have completely stumbled in trying to totally re-focus the game into something people would like without remaking it from scratch.
What makes it most tragic is that this is the last instance of Kevin Conroy’s Batman VA. It’s not a good close to such a legacy.
Same, it’s hard to build expectations, but I also felt a little bit of that with Endwalker’s impending release. “Oh, so we go to the moon now?” when the moon was barely before the halfway point.
One thing that can help is if they can invent methods of moving beyond power scaling. The Endsinger’s potential was mostly dictated by “despair for the future”, which is such a vague concept they could likely invent new such challenges without explicitly saying “This thing is stronger than the last thing you fought”. It’s already hard to claim that the cattle at the far edge of Thavnair are stronger than Hades.
I know a lot of people point to resale as a big advantage of physical media, but I really prefer just having a digital environment that encourages frequent sales and price reductions.
If you think about memorable singleplayer games for instance (AAA or indie), they’re really victimized by that mentality of “Well, I guess I’m done with this now”. Even shitty online games, or big open-world games with 80 hours of boring content, usually won’t be re-sold in that way; and each used sale will be a lost New sale for the developer. Never forget that You are the product of GameStop’s used games business.
We get a lot of sequels in the gaming world, and a common criticism is when a series isn’t really innovating enough. We’re given an open world game that takes 40 hours, with DLC stretching it out 20 more, and see a sequel releasing that cut out it’s late 30 hours because players were already getting bored....
Hi! I’ve been working on a list of RPGs (mostly japanese or j-influenced somewhat) in which the cast is mostly adults. The list is hosted on backloggd....
The funny thing is, I don’t think even this is a right way of looking at it. I think variety in the characters you view makes them more interesting; adult characters can definitely come across as heroic even to kids. It’s not necessarily excluding them as an audience.
So recently I was thinking how games with pixel art graphics are popular nowadays, and I was wondering if there are new games being made with other kinds of “retro” graphics, for example, games that look like the PS1 or PS2 eras....
Alisa is a great horror game that uses pre-rendered backgrounds and plays very much like an old Resident Evil game. It even opens up with a pretty nice FMV intro.
One big difficulty of it is that there’s one finite currency used for buying upgrades, weapons, health, and ammo; and you’ll likely be strained if you avoid buying the latter.
they’re like G2A with a sale on at the moment, they have steam keys for the new stalker game. i’d like to buy that game as its 30 uk pounds on yuplay but they dont give the keys till launch day…...
Besides the difficulties for players, there’s also the fact that key reselling is an excellent method for credit card pickpockets to launder money quickly.
Someone’s credit card is swiped in the streets, and in the time before it’s reported stolen, the thief buys many copies of expensive games, to be resold on a place like this. The key resellers themselves claim they’re purchased directly, but…I personally have almost no faith in them or their claims.
It’s not a trend they abandoned - Counter Strike is still a huge source of deceptive digital item trade. It also spread to Team Fortress 2 in the meantime.
“I was able to get into your admin’s crypto wallet and steal $400,000”
“Holy crap! Good find. Can you document how you did that, and put the money back?”
“Lol, you think you can order Lapsus around? Money’s mine, life lesson: Secure it better. I’m going to leak your home address now.”
The judicial decision seemed to be based more around the fact that he was a danger to others, regardless of his own mental limitations. He re-hacked the company using a cell phone and a Fire TV stick when cut off from other devices. What else can they feasibly do? I sympathize with people who have special needs, but that doesn’t mean people should just live in fear of the ones that are a danger.
When the “victim” is lost money and leaked footage, I’m sure there’s limited sympathy, but I feel like these hackers are not so long from deciding to SWAT someone and very possibly getting people killed.
I guess with such a terrible track record around games based on larger media properties, it might not be surprising if that new (reportedly decent, if by the numbers) Avatar game isn’t selling gangbusters.
Despite being nominated for numerous awards and even winning Game of the Year in 2018, the creator of God of War, David Jaffe, is not a huge fan of the new direction the series has gone in. Jaffe himself hasn't worked on these new God of War games, but thinks that they're not staying true to the spirit of the character and the...
Funny thing is, I realize now there’s multiple franchises I’ve stopped for gameplay reasons, not story.
In God of War, not only was I contending with an offset thumbstick that I didn’t feel like replacing, but I was stuck on a fight that I didn’t seem to be geared for, and was getting pummeled.
Last of Us, I got stuck on some stealth section against enemies that didn’t seem to behave as the tutorial suggested.
Demon’s Souks would just be leagues beyond me anyway, so no chance there.
This one did seem to come out of nowhere, and definitely seems a lot better than the common standard for games based off movies. The reviews are kind of in the middle, but given that’s been the case for prior Far Cry games and I’ve still enjoyed them, I wouldn’t mind picking it up.
Granted, not now…like everyone, I have a huge backlog and can’t justify buying a new game at full price.
First and foremost, This is kind of a rant. I do not like horror games. I have never played any ‘strictly horror’ ones before. And yes I get scared easily....
No matter how popular it is, I’m pretty sure I don’t have to play it to know I wouldn’t like it.
You walk into rooms, and if there’s no monster, you collect the scrap. If there is, you either die instantly and present a clip for your teammates, or there’s a very simple counter for them that just requires not instantly panicking.
Lots of waiting for your teammates to finish a mission because you just got unlucky.
It didn’t have a way to function in the event of system failure.
Steam sometimes goes down. When that happens, people can often still play their singleplayer games. If Steam had totally failed business-wise, it either would have been sold to another publisher who would maintain access, or the games would’ve been unlocked for permanent offline play.
Take a look at Stadia’s failure resolution strategy; they had to fully refund every person who bought a game there, because all purchases became completely unusable. Imagine if they’d gone a decade selling games to people and building off of their revenue, before encountering failure.
I’ve heard secondhand the people working on a coop mod, after making one for Skyrim, gave up on it after deciding the game is just bad and uninteresting.
It is, and arguably a very good thing. SSDs vastly improve loading times, so there’s fewer occasions where your character awaits a slow elevator, or shimmies slowly through a crawl space. Or, just have you stare at a loading screen.
Not to mention the issues in multiplayer, where 7 players on SSDs need to wait for a hard drive player to load the level before they can start.
The article seems to highlight that the money behind such a big event mainly goes to the hype for games yet unreleased, rather than focusing on praise and even advertising for really high-quality games that are already out.
Sometime I’d like it if video game marketing changed this way - it’s much easier to market a game that already has tons of great reviews, and they’ve kind of generated many gamers that are unsure about any marketing they hear. The streamer I watched the awards with ended up finding out about a previously-released game by a developer he’d really enjoyed, thanks to the show.
My partner and I occasionally play games together, but they pretty much only play word puzzle games on their own. I’m not very good at word games though, and they don’t have very good spatial skills, so we frequently find ourselves mismatched. We have a switch and a single decent gaming pc, and a pretty old laptop....
In terms of coop games with cats in them: Aqua Kitty is an option. More of an underwater action game, could be too fast paced.
If you ever return to Overcooked, some versions of the game have a Practice Mode you can go into. You can’t progress levels with this, but you can serve out dishes at your own pace, which feels nicer.
An old top-down shooter I enjoy is Assault Android Cactus. Players can revive themselves if they die, the only cost being that dying makes it hard to keep up a certain rate of kills needed to clear the level without the Battery draining out.
At a long stretch, there are visual novels like Pizza Game that are much more fun with your own voice acting applied, largely due to the horrendous stupidity of the whole cast.
What a thumbnail. Sooo many franchises I can think of now that try to graduate to a new protagonist and struggle with it because of rules of popularity.
Ichiban can now join Apollo, Raiden, Nero, and others feeling annoyed at being frequently upstaged.
It’s definitely a black mark on Xbox that they couldn’t get splitscreen on Series S; but it does seem like that specific feature needs a lot in the way of CPU power. Hopefully that doesn’t spell trouble for future releases like GTAVI.
I’m basically a grumpy old man when it comes to the Trails series. First pair of games had a ditzy young girl with a staff as their lead, and then every other one has had self-insert harem-leading male characters, usually wielding a sword.
I was even upset at Hero getting into SSB. I’m sure Dragon Quest has its cool character designs, but NodsSilently isn’t one of them.
The issue Valve had with this was that they weren’t willing to do the basic vetting needed to ensure a mod’s content is legitimately owned. For a full game, made from scratch in Unity, that’s not necessarily easier to verify, but the bar for entry (and to making something interesting for viewers) is high enough that a developer can be harshly penalized for breaking it. And of course, it has still happened, wherein a little Superman game is found to have been completely stolen from someone who put it out for free.
When you have a big complete game like Skyrim, and one mod only needs to do something silly like put Thomas the Tank Engine’s face onto a greathammer, it’s a low bar for entry for something some people might actually want, as opposed to shitty Unity asset flips. Still, the storefront needs to be sure that THAT developer owns Thomas’s face (they don’t) and that they put the work into applying it (they might have just pulled files from some obscure Nexus Mods entry and hoped no one noticed).
Ownership verification is tough. I seriously doubt they’re actually putting the time in.
The review bombing was the form of communication used to inform Valve of what I just described. The prime complaints were based around lack of authenticity in many of the mods that first requested payment - many mod authors saw their work stolen and reposted.
You’re not totally wrong; they could operate that way, wherein victims of theft would report what people have re-uploaded as their own. But the problem is, this puts the onus of policework entirely on mod operators, who have their own lives and livelihoods. Imagine you wrote a mod as a hobby for four years, spent some time abroad, came home, never heard about the mod workshop stuff, and then discovered that your mod blew up in popularity under someone else’s name. Plus, Valve would need to moderate and figure out who is telling the truth (lest a bad actor make a fake claim on a legitimate mod seller). That kind of situation is often unrecoverable.
You can even read stories about the wars that photographers have over this kind of thing - photos are the kind of thing people pass around like candy, even though some amazing ones take tons of expertise and effort for the photographer to take; they often struggle to get websites and magazines to pay the ad revenue they’re due for each time they’re shown. It’s much like the mod workshop would have been - a very “low friction” environment for reuploads.
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
When the EDF sale came around, I already owned 4.1 but decided to get back into it. Taking some references from a guide on what are the best weapons, I have a lot of fun as Wing Diver, and even finished a few missions on Inferno.
It probably helps that I got a new CPU since I last played the game. Handling hundreds of GIANT INSECTS on screen can’t be simple for old computers.
I just finished Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane yesterday. Definitely the kind of game that sits on your mind a long time after you’ve finished. It’s almost criminal to refer to it as an “Ace Attorney fan-game”, seeing how many things they get so right so uniquely. They absolutely nail the kind of cathartic, heart-twisting drama of all of these characters that gets you cheering for the ending.
There’s a lot in the soundtrack that I adore, especially the way they build multiple character leitmotifs and a particular track right at the finale of the game, but obviously, their equivalent of the “Pursuit” theme is always going to be a standout.
This is an important observation; slowly, it becomes better for EA releasing their next singleplayer adventure to restructure: The base is “free”, and then you can buy passes to access the singleplayer world as microtransactions that are not easily transferred.
A lot of RMT content is not easy for a court to define resellability of; think things like orbs that increase a weapon’s stats through a one-time forging process. We don’t want to make that a safer vending process for publishers than full games.
Veteran Videogame Analyst: Subscription growth has flattened [in video games] (files.catbox.moe) angielski
Adding a bit more to the discussion on whether game subscription can be “the future”, it looks like despite the heavy push made in the past decade, subscriptions only make up 10% of total video game spending in the US....
Baldur’s Gate 3 boss says gamers don’t want mass subscriptions (www.pcgamesn.com) angielski
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Tomb Raider I-II-III Remastered details enhancements, new features (www.gematsu.com) angielski
Ubisoft Wants You To Be Comfortable Not Owning Your Games (kotaku.com) angielski
FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH - Destined for Rebirth (youtu.be) angielski
Chasing the *frag*on (startrek.website) angielski
Oh trust me. I know your frustration better than you do. (lemmy.world) angielski
Final Fantasy 17 needs "a younger generation" of lead developers, suggests FF16 producer (www.rockpapershotgun.com) angielski
Many players have become "patient gamers". What are games people might miss out on by waiting for sales? angielski
Sales follow the tradition of supply and demand. Products come out at their highest price because of expectations and hype. Then, as interest wanes, the publisher continues to make some sales by reducing price to tempt the less interested parties....
10 Days Into 2024 And 2300+ Video Game Layoffs Have Been Announced (kotaku.com)
cross-posted from: beehaw.org/post/10945203...
AYANEO NEXT LITE handheld announced with SteamOS Linux | UPDATE: Not SteamOS Apparently (www.gamingonlinux.com) angielski
UPDATE: Despite saying they were using SteamOS on the homepage, they’ve since clarified that it’s actually “an optimized version based on HoloISO”. HoloISO seems to be a community compiled version of SteamOS. It’s very similar but it’s not officially SteamOS....
Video game actors speak out after union announces AI voice deal (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
According to SAG AFTRA, the deal will “enable Replica to engage SAG-AFTRA members under a fair, ethical agreement to safely create and license a digital replica of their voice. Licensed voices can be used in video game development and other interactive media projects from pre-production to final release.”...
FINAL FANTASY XIV: DAWNTRAIL Full Trailer (youtu.be) angielski
Generous today, are we? (lemmy.world) angielski
Game genres where "It's just more X content" is more than enough angielski
We get a lot of sequels in the gaming world, and a common criticism is when a series isn’t really innovating enough. We’re given an open world game that takes 40 hours, with DLC stretching it out 20 more, and see a sequel releasing that cut out it’s late 30 hours because players were already getting bored....
Adult casts in (J)RPGs, a list (backloggd.com) angielski
Hi! I’ve been working on a list of RPGs (mostly japanese or j-influenced somewhat) in which the cast is mostly adults. The list is hosted on backloggd....
Games with graphics resembling PS1 or PS2? angielski
So recently I was thinking how games with pixel art graphics are popular nowadays, and I was wondering if there are new games being made with other kinds of “retro” graphics, for example, games that look like the PS1 or PS2 eras....
key reseller yuplay. trusted?
they’re like G2A with a sale on at the moment, they have steam keys for the new stalker game. i’d like to buy that game as its 30 uk pounds on yuplay but they dont give the keys till launch day…...
What's up with Epic Games? angielski
I can’t seem to find that one comment explaining the issue with them…...
Lapsus$: GTA 6 hacker handed indefinite hospital order (www.bbc.com) angielski
The Worst Videogames of 2023 (according to Metacritic scores) (www.metacritic.com) angielski
God of War Creator Is Unhappy With New Games and Kratos' Story (comicbook.com) angielski
Despite being nominated for numerous awards and even winning Game of the Year in 2018, the creator of God of War, David Jaffe, is not a huge fan of the new direction the series has gone in. Jaffe himself hasn't worked on these new God of War games, but thinks that they're not staying true to the spirit of the character and the...
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora - the big developer tech interview (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
So I tried Lethal company... and didn't like it. Does it get better eventually ? angielski
First and foremost, This is kind of a rant. I do not like horror games. I have never played any ‘strictly horror’ ones before. And yes I get scared easily....
Netflix developing over 10 games in-house currently (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
Bethesda confirms they are working on releasing new features you asked for, from city maps, to mod support, to all new ways of traveling next year for Starfield (www.reddit.com) angielski
Final Fantasy 16 on PC shows signs of life, with producer Yoshi-P saying it will run best on an SSD (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
The Game Awards 2023 fell short of honoring its own industry (www.destructoid.com) angielski
Recommend a game for me to play with my partner angielski
My partner and I occasionally play games together, but they pretty much only play word puzzle games on their own. I’m not very good at word games though, and they don’t have very good spatial skills, so we frequently find ourselves mismatched. We have a switch and a single decent gaming pc, and a pretty old laptop....
Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth | Bucket List Story Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
Baldur's Gate 3 out now on Xbox (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
Visions of Mana | Announce Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
Bethesda is once again adding support for paid mods to Skyrim (steamcommunity.com) angielski
Seems like Bethesda wants another go at this
The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion (lemmy.world) angielski
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!...
EU court rules people can resell digital games (www.gamingbible.com) angielski
Finally some good news! I’ve been waiting for quite a while for such a ruling....