That’s because these people learn the same cookie-cutter techniques at film school and start writing scripts in large groups right after getting their arts degree. Identity has been beaten out of them.
I‘m happy they got out to work on something better and less restraining. There‘s already a lot in their Original Sins games that couldn‘t be brought over to BG3 but I‘d love to see return in future games and there‘s so much more to come on top of that.
Anything accessibility related is merely glanced over at best to drum up good press for these corporations. They love to put it in promo material and act like they’re at the spearfront, but almost every step to make games more accessible are first taken by indenpendent developers, modders and hobby engineers.
Simply put, it’s not as important to them as they claim it is.
I recall Nintendo claiming they wanted to move away from mobile again a while ago but I didn‘t really believe it back then and I‘m still skeptical now. They‘ve received more criticism for their predatory mobile games lately so maybe that got something to do with it or it‘s simply not making enough money anymore to bother with it and they‘d rather get the devs working on something else.
It’s the current Steam publishing meta. A free demo will create traffic for the newly created Steam page of your game, resulting in more Wishlistings, which is usually the only way to be featured and seen anywhere before release for indie developers. And that’s how your Wishlistings really explode and you make a lot of sales. Getting a demo out is by far highest priority for game publishing in 2024.
MS usually buys competition to erase it so there’s nothing too surprising about this. And no, Bethesda and Blizzard won’t be treated very differently in the long run. That is after every material of everything the studios have ever worked on is fed into datasets to train AI for who knows what.
I’m a little surprised either of them have such a strong opinion about something EU related anyway, given it doesn’t affect them directly. Well I guess Louis is just really passionate about that stuff so it’s not all that surprising. As for Thor, maybe he’s using his online presence to kickstart a live service game himself? Obviously regulations are scary in that case. It’s a wild guess from my side but I think that would be on brand for him.
Let’s not pretend like Blizz or Bethesda will see the end of this decade anyway. Their fate was sealed when they got bought. Still, unionizing was the best thing employees could hope for. Good for them!
The industry’s effort to be more inclusive and diverse mostly comes from indie games, though. Of course AAA has long realized the potential to boost their image by copying some mechanics and ideas but let’s not pretend any of those CEOs on their high horses actually cares about inclusion. They’ll drop any efforts the very moment it doesn’t benefit them directly. But there will always be passionate indie developers pushing boundaries to actually help more people enjoy games.
I remember being very excited for the first one just to find it a little lackluster in the end and too cluttered with DLCs. Since then Frontier really has made a name for themselves as Paradox‘s little brother that litters their game with DLCs. Even as a fan of park sims, I‘ll pass on this one right away.
Fuckin Japan man. They just love their giga corporations way too much. Can‘t even have a single very successful indie studio in peace without throwing themselves at Sony.