There’s some reaction element, but the core loop is learning how to be optimally positioned to use your weapon, how to optimally pace your attacks, when your attacks leave you vulnerable. Then once you get that, you do the same with enemies. You learn where they hit hardest, what you can avoid, what their tells are, and when they’re vulnerable.
If you’re willing to learn and approach the game with learning as a goal, and understanding that you’ll die as part of that learning process, they’re great, because they do a really good job of creating difficulty in a way that almost all damage is predictable and avoidable if you know what you’re looking at and approach it the right way.
If you just want to button mash you’re going to have a bad time.
I don’t disagree with that. But he’s almost definitely responding to all the vitriol directed at employees losing their jobs as a result of bad decisions passed way down the chain to them, and this article is trying to make it some gotcha hit piece.
I do think being in charge of monetization at a company that does so in the way almost any AAA studio does is an inherently unethical job and will have a hard time feeling sorry for him personally, since he’s willing to do that job, but people are also being miserable assholes to everyone else who just is trying to work on a game for a stable employer. And all he’s actually saying is “maybe don’t be an asshole to people”.
He’s very clearly talking about celebrating people losing their jobs, and does so without saying anything super crazy.
Full quoteI rarely post on social media, but today I am sad. Ashamed and sad. > >The gaming industry is rough at the moment, we all know it. > >But seeing how “gamers” react on social medias, wishing ill-fate to companies and people alike is sad. (And not only towards Ubisoft) > >Even though it is always the vocal minority that express themselves on social media, I was hurt, hurt and ashamed to be a part of this community. > >What is even more revolting, is coming on Linkedin and seeing the same comments from people within the industry. > >On top of exposing yourself as a clearly non-decent human being, you are affecting thousands of employees that are already impacted by all the hate despite doing their best to deliver incredible experiences. > >How can you wish a company to fail simply because they do not cater to you or that the product does not please you is beyond me. > >We are all on the same boat, please please please, stop spreading hate, we should all uplift each other instead of bringing each other down.
It felt like most non-fromsoft clones in terms of the map, though. No one else manages the feel of opening up the map like they do. Elden Ring is much more focused on the open world, so it approaches the use of space differently, but the way you can look back over some areas and see what you just spent hours battling through gives a similar feel of intentionality to the map design.
Lords of the Fallen not giving that feel is part of why I didn’t spend as much time with it as the combat quality would imply.
They have a lot of perfectly fine games. If they were priced appropriately.
Mario, Donkey Kong, Metroid are all pretty good 2D platformers (with Metroid obviously being one of the original sources of metroidvania as a genre). But tech has advanced to the point that one person, or a small team, can make 2D games every bit as good as theirs, many small teams have (with better art in some cases), and there are many better options that start at lower prices than their “huge discount mega-sale” price of $40-45, and discount even further beyond that.
Their games sell well enough, so clearly it works on some level, but it’s just generally doesn’t make a lot of sense to get a game like Metroid Dread over a game like Ori or Hollow Knight. Games aren’t fungible, and I get that, but I genuinely think a lot of indie games are better, better looking, and much more substantial than a lot of their 2D offerings.
Except it doesn’t make class actions more expensive, because it removes the step of invalidating the arbitration clause.
Footing the bill for arbitration was pro-consumer. They abandoned the whole thing because of bad faith frivolous lawsuit spam trying to extort settlements, not for any other reason.
I know the first one was only ever intended to be a tech demo, and it did a really good job for that, but does this one feel like an actual full-fledged game?
Also look how much of their “development costs” are actually marketing budget. They fully recognize that increasing sales is worth paying heavily for, and steam increases sales by meaningfully more than you’re paying them (which is why every AAA publisher who experiments with leaving comes back).
The fun part is, unless you’re doing stuff that’s extremely shady, they’ll basically give you as many keys as you want to sell the game externally. Of the hundreds of games in my Steam library, it’s a very small fraction that have been purchased through Steam, or that they’ve made any money on. Their 30% is closer to a commission than a platform fee, and a 30% commission on a product that’s all margin isn’t unusual.
And people use Steam because they’re actually way better than any other option. The “freedom” platforms like GOG can’t be bothered even having a client support Linux, while Valve invested a good bit into working with community projects to make most of their (already sold about as much as they’re going to) back catalogue compatible and smooth. Steam input is also, by itself, more value added than any other store, and there are several other meaningful features.