I wouldn’t say I necessarily have favorite developers, since I’ve rarely played and enjoyed more than a single game from a developer. At least before that developer is closed or morphed into something else.
Currently, I would say Bethesda is probably my only favorite “developer” currently going. I actually enjoyed Starfield quite a bit and have enjoyed their games going all the way back to Morrowind. Not to mention, there still isn’t anyone else that has managed to act an alternative to their style of games.
Beyond them, I’m wracking my brain trying to come up with another developer that is still putting out games and that I would classify as a “favorite developer” and not just “a developer who makes one game I like”.
Edit: FROM Software, that’s what I was probably trying to think of. I’ve definitely enjoyed quite a few of there games.
Honestly, I don’t personally think that developers stop speaking to players directly. But doing so can have consequences, especially if you decide to take a more antagonistic attitude. And dealing with those consequences is the price you pay for more direct communications.
All of this drama is dumb for many reasons. It was dumb for the original comments from players that were insulting towards the devs. It’s dumb for a developer to respond in kind. And it’s dumb that people get so worked up in turn for the developer’s comments (especially the “they should be fired” cries).
But the clear point in the chain that can be severed here is on the developer’s shoulders. We’ll never get rid of 100% of the negativity/toxicity in gaming, but we can limit how much it becomes a part of the community.
It’s unfortunately a case of developers being required to stay “on mute” because of their inherent power - much like being rich, male, and white.
How does the quote go? “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
Ridiculous comparisons aside, primary issue is that there are basically no upsides and a lot of potential downsides to a developer actively like an ass in customer facing channels.
And feeding the cycle of “clapbacks” isn’t going to do the community any favors.
FFXIV will always require a subscription outside of the free trial. Game Pass will only give you the base game. But not all the expansions and only 30 days of playtime.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s a big deal. But it’s just stupid as a developer to act like this.
I often ask about risk vs reward in these situations. What were they going to gain by acting like this and what were they going to risk by acting like this?
It’s going to be hard to come up with a list of things I have forgotten that might be relevant to the DLCs I haven’t played.
That aside, it’s more that I barely remember even many of the main story beats and any characters aside from the top 4.
Edit: Oh, and I remember another thing. My main playthrough was on PC, but I don’t use my PC for gaming so much anymore. I had a decent playthrough on main game on Xbox, but I bought the GOTY edition without realizing that the saves weren’t compatible, or something like that. Hence, my attempts at trying to play through the game.
I beat the the main game at one point but was so exhausted with the game I had to take a break. By the time I got back I didn’t remember enough about the main game to play the DLCs, so I keep trying to replay it from the beginning.
I think I’ve made 4 attempts so far and end up stalling out about 10 hours in each time.
Someone mentioned this on Reddit, but I wonder how poorly discovery would have gone for Yuzu if the lawsuit had continued.
I can’t imagine they were super careful about not bringing up the piracy side of things in various internal and even external communications. I can’t help but wonder if they basically talked about or even bragged about how much money they get from adding support for games like TotK.
Was there a level of “meta” in the Director of L4D? My understanding was that handled the flow of an individual match, but there wasn’t influences of the matches on other matches.
Since this is about the overall campaign that encompasses a level above the individual matches.