Sony’s not doing great right now either. They’re either matching or several million units behind where they were with the PS4 at the same point in the console generation; given that their closest competition has been decimated, that’s not great for them. They don’t make games as quickly as they used to, which means they don’t make as many as they used to, and their margins are slimmer on their successes while the failures like Concord and PSVR2 hurt more. Both of those consoles are rapidly headed toward a future that only looks like personal computers for high-end gaming. Nintendo is at least mostly immune to this for at least the Switch 2 generation.
I hear you on the trailer. I think Fallout and Outer Worlds are both inherently dark comedies at their core, and I think that trailer lets the potential audience know that it’s a comedy in a way that Fallout trailers typically don’t, but Fallout has a legacy at this point. For me, the touchstone of The Outer Worlds’ humor is right at the beginning, with a man coughing up blood in his dying breaths, trying desperately to remember and recite his company’s motto, and I think that tone holds true throughout. Meanwhile, I’m playing Borderlands 2 right now, and while the comedy does often land for me, it can sometimes devolve into calling a creature a “bonerfart” as the punchline.
They still average out to be very positive scores, so I don’t think we can say most people don’t want what they’re making, and no viewpoint is universal, so don’t put words in my mouth.
But you’ll see the same people asking for a more sustainable game industry complain about what they find when they see it.
Obsidian getting dinged in reviews for making more focused games that don’t waste your time and don’t bet their company’s entire future on its budget and scope has been very frustrating to see.
A game is also more than the aggregate of its review scores. An average of 81 on Open Critic is derived from those who rated it a 6 and those who loved it enough to give it a 9 or a 10.
Yeah, but then you have to sift through the files with Canadian cable channel watermarks in the corner, and if you decide you want subtitles, you might not have them available.
But since you pointed it out, I don’t think there’s any kind of video that can’t be pirated easily, which makes the presence of DRM even dumber.
Man, I didn’t know that about Blu Ray encryption keys. Hollywood deserves the downturn it’s going through right now. Give me the GOG of movies and TV shows. That it doesn’t already exist is stupid.
They don’t seem interested in detailing why they feel that way. They’re just going to give BG3 backhanded compliments and list games they feel are better without explaining anything. And you know, I’ve played a number of those games too. They aren’t deeper RPGs, because being deeper than BG3 is a high bar to clear.