The industry historically hasn’t shrunk when studios close like this. There just ends up being more bespoke studios all over the world with former developers from those studios.
I don’t think big companies know how to make a good FPS campaign anymore, let alone hone in on classic deathmatch multiplayer. The last FPS I bought was Half-Life: Alyx four years ago, and the first one to come along and interest me since then was Phantom Fury, but I’m letting that one iron out bugs for a few weeks before I...
I can think of plenty of games with writing I’ve really enjoyed in recent years, not the least of which is Baldur’s Gate 3 just last year, but FPSes in particular are in one of only a few genres where I haven’t been well served lately.
I would not agree with that, no. First because I’d say mechanics are almost always the most important part anyway, and also because I’ve probably come across more stories that have held my interest in recent years than I did 25 years ago. Stories were pretty basic back then, more often than not. In fact, these days, I’ve been carried through mediocre gameplay by well-told stories more than a few times, and I don’t think that ever happened 25 years ago.
Not exactly, but I have found a taste for loot games lately, so maybe someday I’ll get around to that one. It still wouldn’t scratch the same itch though.
It peaked today at just shy of 100k concurrent players following its successful early access period, with about 70k reviews, both of which are indicators that it’s selling extremely well, as well as taking the #4 spot on the top sellers list on Steam.
Fortunately there are enough people who value them more than you, because most games, even moderately budgeted ones, wouldn’t be able to sustain themselves at that price.
Let’s say that including benefits, a developer’s salary is about $100k. Maybe a small team of 8 people worked on a game like The Thaumaturge for 3 years. Before you even factor in contract work like voice acting, that would put the development budget at $2.4M. If the game cost $20, they’d have to sell about 120k copies to break even on that investment, which is far from guaranteed. By pricing the game at $35, their break even point is nearly half of that. This is a moderately budgeted game, not a AAA game with microtransactions.
Even an experienced team like Mimimi games, who made smart development choices by iterating on what they built before to keep costs down, releasing critical successes several times in a row, ended up closing down because the money coming in was too tight. Their games ranged from $30-$50 and had every sale, bundle, giveaway, and promotional opportunity you could think of.
I’m sorry that you don’t enjoy video games enough to pay $30 for most of the good ones, but I hope one day you can sit down with a calculator and realize why it must be that way.
Currently, mine just says it can’t connect to Steamworks and gets no further. Anyone else having that issue? I would expect the game to fall back to offline mode at least, but even with Steam in offline mode, I get the same error.
So Redfall was set up to fail, and you make those people fall on the sword, and then Hi-Fi Rush is a game people clearly want more of and could have stood to cost more than $30, and you let those people go too instead of hitting the ground running on a sequel? What is wrong with you, Microsoft?
Being after well received titles is congruent with their Game Pass strategy. Being after as much money as possible would mean they probably should have charged more than $30 for one of the best games of the year.
It highlights the crucial flaw with Tekken for me: you have to just memorize how to defend everything your opponents can do to you rather than being able to intuit it on the fly. Which moves hit high/medium/low/overhead or track horizontally? There’s no language to it; it’s just done on a per move basis for balancing reasons, which means it would take me forever to get to the part where I actually get to think and play the game. This string, mashing 3, has highs, mediums, and lows all built in, plus it low profiles some counter attacks from opponents. This bot would beat me, too.
Now this one might be a little heated, but an example of this happening is the game Stellar Blade, whilst it is still a good game, there was also a sex appeal to it which they cut out the jiggle physics and sultryness out of the game before release....
If a little extra jiggle was crucial to the vision, then I’d say they need a better vision, but that’s just me. The commentary I heard around this case in particular is that ratings boards around the world impose a ton of different criteria, and getting around all of them is no easy feat, so that could be to blame.
The sex cards in the first Witcher were particularly egregious. One of them is a woman who sleeps with you as a reward for saving her from being raped.
Why does this response just feel like it’s a restatement of what people already have the right to without addressing if they’re taking any action or not? Their mobile phone example even remains usable, whereas a lot of these games do not.
The campaign is not about getting source code. Though it’s sort of the ultimate way to preserve a game, it’s too high a bar to clear, and in most cases, it’s not even necessary.
You’d have to change how the laws for all of software work to make that a reality, not just video games. And all that’s technically needed to make games work after support ends is a distributed server binary and a change to a client config file to point to it. The engines that games are built on are often not open source, so you’d change the entire business model of the likes of Unity and Unreal (Unreal’s source is available to developers but not “open”). Sometimes source code can even get lost, because it’s not strictly required, just in the way that computers work, to come attached to a compiled executable. The world would be a better place if all video games were open source, and I don’t think open source games are at odds with making a healthy profit (as Doom illustrates), but I think you’d have an insurmountable task of making the entire industry agree to it, as well as a certain amount of the consumer base that drinks the PR kool aid about why games need to stay closed source.
The effect that open sourcing a game would have on cheaters is basically propaganda as far as I’m concerned. Cheating has not and will not be defeated by making a game closed source or even installing rootkits on players’ machines. However, open sourcing a game isn’t necessary to keep it alive after sunsetting it either.
The only kind of cheats you can use on a game like that would be aimbot or wallhacks. But both of those can often be detected using anti-cheat software which acts like a rootkit. So a combination is most often used.
I’d hardly call that defeating cheating, and a rootkit anticheat, while overstepping boundaries in what is acceptable to be done on your own PC, still can’t detect those cheats powered by external hardware, including aimbots. The difference in results between a closed source game with this server authoritative design and an open source one is moot. It’s a bad excuse. It doesn’t mean I’m going to fight too hard for all games to go open source when there are way bigger fish to fry though.
I’m not in the UK, but it’s incredibly hard for me to make an informed purchase as someone who cares about this stuff. My latest strategy is to use the PC Gaming Wiki, because I can’t even rely on store pages on GOG or Steam to paint a full or accurate picture of what I’m buying. Often times I need to hope the developer responds to particular Steam forum posts.
Rumor has it that Yuzu and all of its derivatives violated the DMCA in a way that Ryujinx did not, in that Yuzu was allegedly developed inappropriately using proprietary information from Switch SDKs, where Ryujinx is doing it legit via “clean room” reverse engineering. So Ryujinx is likely safe, but anything using Yuzu code is legally poison.
As most of you know, HL3 is pretty much the most popular “vaporware” game out there. Something always rumored and in development, but never heard again after a certain point....
We know the answers to this. First, we got Half-Life: Alyx, which is a phenomenal Half-Life game that happens to be a VR game. Slight spoilers, but to say that Half-Life 3 is promised at the end of that game is an understatement.
Second, if you’ve already played Alyx, Keighley put out The Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx, which has a full timeline of everything they worked on since Portal 2, including cancelled games. One of those games was Half-Life 3. It would have been a game with procedurally generated levels interspersed with static set pieces, which sounds similar to a single player version of that game The Crossing they were working on. If you ask me, that design makes plenty of sense for putting a bow on a series with a time- and space-hopping protagonist in a series that always ends with cliffhangers. It didn’t come together though, so it got cancelled.
Alyx was put together in part because letting all of their employees dictate their own projects was not getting the same results that it used to, so there was a bit more direction with the project than Valve had had in the years prior.
The real problem is that you can’t create content fast enough to reach the cadence that you’d want with episodic content. Even a lot of TV shows have shifted away from predictable scheduling since Valve tried this experiment (and TV, largely, got better since then too).
The roster they launched with was pretty robust even without him. Personally, after how shoto-heavy past rosters have been, I hope Akuma is the last one, unless they add Dan years from now.
Judging by how Sony is doing even though they clearly “won” with the PS5, it looks like consoles as we know them are not long for this world, and that seems to be the idea Microsoft is pivoting around.
For those who missed it, Embracer is split into three new publicly-traded companies, Asmodee Group (focused on board games) and two tentatively-named groups comprising their video game business. Wingefors, the CEO, and still (I believe) majority share holder of these three new companies, doesn’t do many interviews....
It sucks that I don’t trust this game to be playable offline. I’m also not a fan of hitstun decay, but at least there were a few points in this video where there appeared to be tech traps; if you’re going to have hitstun decay, it needs to keep the other player engaged too, rather than just holding a button and waiting for your opponent to maybe screw up.
In the Paradox case, nothing is live, and they aren’t pretending it’s a service. They just put goods out at a rapid clip that you choose to buy or not. That’s why live service games are always online. If Paradox counts, then so do board games, and that’s absurd.
Just like the UK variant, this is an official government petition to look into the issue. Unlike the UK variant, the only signature threshold is 50 signatures - that said, more is better in this case....
I think your last paragraph highlights exactly how I figured it would work. If you couldn’t provide the servers when you ran out of money, it would show you weren’t complying with the law when you built it. Remember, online multiplayer games existed for a long time without requiring the use of company servers. The Game Awards’ multiplayer game of the year last year is playable via direct IP connection and LAN. Nightingale requires a connection to official servers and was slammed in reviews for not offering the ability for customers to run them themselves like most of Nightingale’s competitors do.
Great. It should come at great risk to build a product for customers that’s designed to self-destruct. It reduces the number of multiplayer games that we’ll be able to play in a decade. Even bad games should be playable indefinitely, but plenty of these are very good games that simply go through the natural ebb and flow of popularity. The solution is to allow me to host the server, connect to a host directly via IP, play over LAN (which means VPNs work too), etc. If you haven’t seen the Accursed Farms video, the root of this campaign, you should watch that. He sets the bar pretty low just so we have the absolute minimum. The go-to example for this is The Crew for the purposes of this campaign.
And honestly, I’m pretty regularly on the side of free market, let people do what they want with their money, but even if this didn’t bother me because of what this means for preserving the history of an art form, it’s become extraordinarily difficult for me, the consumer, to even know what I’m buying. Games with online requirements often hide it in fine print italics in the Steam page; in the case of games like Palworld, that disclaimer is actually wrong, and you can play offline just fine. Games with LAN often don’t advertise it on the list of features, and I have to either ask an existing owner of the game about it or hope the developer answers my question in the Steam forums. We need consumer protections for this stuff codified into law.
My second paragraph is mostly solved by the first paragraph. If every game lives forever, guaranteed by law, then I hardly have to care, but mostly I was stressing that there’s not even a free market solution to this problem. The point of this campaign is to give us these rights, because it’s truly stupid that we’ve gotten away without having them. Perhaps with the right legal challenge in the right country, it will be seen to already violate some consumer protection law currently on the books. That’s one of the things we’re hoping for, and this campaign is our best shot. I’d strongly encourage you to follow whatever steps on the web site you’re able to based on where you live and/or whether or not you own a copy of The Crew.
Xbox president: Studio closures will ensure 'business is healthy for the long term' (www.gamedeveloper.com) angielski
Xbox Has Had More Studio Closures Than First Party Game Releases So Far In 2024 (twistedvoxel.com) angielski
We've almost reached the end of the 1st half of 2024, and Xbox has had more studio closures than first party game releases in the year so far.
Perfect Dark Reboot Is Allegedly In Bad Shape (www.gamespot.com) angielski
I don’t think big companies know how to make a good FPS campaign anymore, let alone hone in on classic deathmatch multiplayer. The last FPS I bought was Half-Life: Alyx four years ago, and the first one to come along and interest me since then was Phantom Fury, but I’m letting that one iron out bugs for a few weeks before I...
V Rising has launched out of Early Access! (steamcommunity.com) angielski
V Rising 1.0 review: one of the slickest survival games gets even slicker (www.rockpapershotgun.com) angielski
BREAKING: Microsoft has closed Redfall's Arkane Austin, HiFi Rush's Tango Gameworks, and more in devastating cuts at Bethesda. | IGN (twitter.com) angielski
A Tekken 8 streamer spent almost a week using a one-button mashing bot to prove that Eddy Gordo is as big a menace as ever (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
That is honestly hilarious from a old, old used to play Tekken player.
Controversy and Censorship angielski
Now this one might be a little heated, but an example of this happening is the game Stellar Blade, whilst it is still a good game, there was also a sex appeal to it which they cut out the jiggle physics and sultryness out of the game before release....
UK Government Response to the Stop Killing Games Petition (petition.parliament.uk) angielski
The Government recognises recent concerns raised by video games users regarding the long-term operability of purchased products....
Government Response - Petition: Require videogame publishers to keep games they have sold in a working state (petition.parliament.uk)
tl;dr: we will do nothing about it...
Nintendo DMCAs Yuzu forks on GitHub (github.com) angielski
Unsurprising move. People should’ve moved them elsewhere.
Half Life 3 angielski
As most of you know, HL3 is pretty much the most popular “vaporware” game out there. Something always rumored and in development, but never heard again after a certain point....
Final Fantasy Maker Square Enix Takes $140 Million Hit in ‘Content Abandonment Losses’ as It Revises Game Pipeline - IGN (www.ign.com) angielski
One big project or multiple smallers ones? What do you think?
Street Fighter 6 - Akuma Gameplay Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
Xbox Console Sales Are Tanking (kotaku.com) angielski
Lars Wingefors on why Embracer is going away, and what happens next [gamesindustry.biz] (www.gamesindustry.biz) angielski
For those who missed it, Embracer is split into three new publicly-traded companies, Asmodee Group (focused on board games) and two tentatively-named groups comprising their video game business. Wingefors, the CEO, and still (I believe) majority share holder of these three new companies, doesn’t do many interviews....
Illaoi, the Kraken Priestess - Gameplay Reveal Trailer | 2XKO (www.youtube.com) angielski
I just want to play my game... angielski
Apparently the Ubisoft servers are down so I cannot play SINGLE PLAYER Breakpoint....
The "Stop Killing Games" Australian Petition is Live (www.aph.gov.au) angielski
Just like the UK variant, this is an official government petition to look into the issue. Unlike the UK variant, the only signature threshold is 50 signatures - that said, more is better in this case....