They were always known as being a crunch-heavy studio. The only reason they weren’t pulling their current mtx-riddled, always-online modal before is that the tech wasn’t there.
Arma is pretty cool… despite BI. DayZ has been (for me) a continual disappointment. I don’t have any particularly strong feelings about Dean Hall, but I don’t get the impression he knows what’s wrong with DayZ, or how to fix it.
I was/am responding to something you said in your comment, specifically that they were copying HZD.
I think it’s entirely possible that Sony wins, though they shouldn’t. But it will be about whether this constitutes an infringement on Sony’s Horizon trademark, not copyright. I don’t think it does, and I do think this amounts to Sony wanting to own the concept, like Nintendo wants to own creature catchers, but it is obviously possible another court would make another bad ruling in the IP space, especially if that means siding with the non-Chinese corporation.
I will also remind you that you said it would be absurd to take Sony seriously, which is not the same thing as stating “there’s no trademark violations here”. The latter is literally what the court has to make a decision on. The former is about whether there’s any basis to go to court which already means you think you know better than Sony lawyers and, if the court doesn’t instantly throw out the case, also better than the legal system. Maybe you are some godlike lawyer who knows better than everyone else, but if you are I think you can understand why I’m calling bullshit on that.
It’s not copying it, it’s ripping it off, which isn’t illegal. Copying (i.e. copyright infringement) has a specific legal meaning, and it’s not being asserted by Sony. Sony is trying to claim that it being a ripoff means customers would be confused into believing it’s actually a Horizon game and purchasing it in error, which is stupid.
If Tencent had called this Horizons: Motiram, they’d be 100% in the right. But they are just trying to essentially claim they own the combination of style and theme of “colorful world with tribal humans vs robot animals”. That’s not how trademark works (this is trademark btw, not copyright, just in case anyone is getting them mixed up).
It’s not copyright, it’s trademark. Sony isn’t claiming they’re the same characters, they’re claiming that the style is so similar that people would mistakenly believe that Light of Motiram is actually a Horizon game, which is why this case is so stupid; it is a blatant ripoff, but ripoffs aren’t illegal, and no one is going to actually mix them up.
I think it’s hard for me to differentiate which games didn’t get the recognition they deserved in their time, and which games I love are just too old for people to think about much anymore.
NOX is one of my all-time favorite ARPGs, but I remember it being pretty popular in its time.
Earth 2150 is probably my answer: it was one of the best RTSes of all time. OF ALL TIME. I don’t get why it never seemed to catch on.
They already scan all submitted games with malware scanners. Manual approval wouldn’t be any different, they weren’t doing binary analysis or source code review before. Their AV scanners back then would have given them the same result as their AV scanners now.