They’ve been owned by Fandom for a little while now, and they even made some good changes lately, but then someone a few rungs up the corporate ladder was replaced with someone who decided to make a pretty huge change to the company that basically compromises the entire point of Giant Bomb, if not also Gamespot.
See my other comment below, but the gist of it is that they were told to pause streaming for a while as everyone tries to figure out a path forward. They put out one Bombcast that rebelled against the new Fandom “values”, and you can find a link to it if you look through Bluesky or the Giant Bomb reddit. They’re still paused, and it’s been about a week now. It might be the end of Giant Bomb, in which case, Grubb, Mike, and Dan have sworn to keep doing Blight Club, and the others are probably preparing their parachutes too. It also might not be the end of Giant Bomb; nothing’s been decided yet, and everyone currently still has their jobs.
If Episode 888 is the last Bombcast, it will leave the world with the integrity that created it in the first place. Give it a listen, when you get around to it.
They’ve already plateaued and basically admitted to it. It’s a large revenue stream that’s not as large as they thought it would be, so now they’re going to coast with it and rely on just being a massive publisher instead.
Trying to raise the “standard” price to $80 will have very nice ripple effects of more pricing diversity, where each game will really consider what it’s actually worth, which we haven’t had for a long time. Even now we’re getting first-party Microsoft titles releasing at $20, $30, and $50.
They’ll only get Game Pass on PlayStation with Sony’s blessing, which is unlikely. And the next Xbox will just be a PC. I don’t think any of the consoles are in the market of selling units at a loss anymore. Those days are done. So with tariffs and inflation, this is the only way it could go.
A lot of games priced at $70 right now are having a rough go of it, so charging more on top of that isn’t going to help, but there are the likes of South of Midnight and Clair Obscur launching at $50. If your game isn’t as hot of a commodity as Mario Kart, you’re probably going to try to lure people in with a lower price.
The breadth of the Game Pass catalog is far larger, and Microsoft isn’t exiting the console market, as much as they don’t care about exclusivity. So personally, I doubt it, but I don’t have a crystal ball.
By “girly” games I mean : games that have a soft/pink color scheme. About slice of life (preferably with romance elements), and non-violent with no/minimal combat....
My wife loves Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, and she’s been way into Hello Kitty: Island Adventure lately. It seems to split the difference between those things and add some of its own spice on top.
My SO and I have been having a lot of fun playing co-op games on the Steam Deck connected to the TV. We recently finished Split Fiction and I’m looking for the next cool experience to try out. We enjoy casual co-op games, nothing too hard or violent. EDIT: pixel art is apparently a big turnoff for her so that’s out as well....
If you like puzzle games, you might try a game that’s not technically multiplayer but that the two of you can work on solving together, which is what my wife and I do. Good candidates for that are Case/Rise of the Golden Idol, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, and we’re currently playing Blue Prince.
I’d say check out Case of the Golden Idol on a deep sale to test the waters. Lorelei is definitely hard mode if you’re not sure if this is something you’d want, but we found that having two people to approach solving the puzzles helped a lot.
Other than what they explicitly call out as a change to address criticisms of Borderlands 3, I don’t know what this does differently from Borderlands 3, but I really like what I see. This looks great.
Playing through those old games now, I feel like they could use some kind of dodge move to get an escape from guaranteed damage, so if the movement does that, I’ll be happy. But those games are also littered with level designs that make you take the long way around due to a single ledge being too high, so hopefully it alleviates that problem a bit too. The Destiny personal vehicle seems like a departure from Catch a Ride, but maybe those already weren’t in 3 for all I know, and being able to spawn it out of nowhere probably is an improvement.
They can’t lay people off, so they just put them in a room with no work to do until they get so bored that they quit. It’s the same thing but different.
Live service, sure, since that’s the entire point of live service, but we’re spoiled for choice of fantastic games across different scopes and scales that don’t have any microtransactions at all.
I think you’re having trouble finding the good stuff in the first place then. We’re flooded with more great games than ever. And microtransactions are one thing, but something like a DLC expansion isn’t pressuring you to buy it if you like the base game. Even still, if you had a problem with the existence of any DLC for a game whatsoever, there’s still tons to play.
Is DLC a problem if a game had been “finished” for years and then they go back and make one for an old game? It’s been known to happen. I don’t see it as a problem, because it’s arbitrary. In many ways, a DLC can be reactionary for what a game needs after they’ve had time to observe the completed thing. It also depends on your definition of indie, since there’s as wide of a range in production value among games called “indie” as there is among “AAA”. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II probably cost one tenth what the next Grand Theft Auto cost to make, and a game like Indika or Clair Obscur could fool plenty of people into thinking they were made by enormous teams.
But like I said, even if I filtered for games without any sort of DLC, there’s still tons to play.
That depends on what you’re looking for. From this year alone, there’s Split Fiction, Avowed, and Knights in Tight Spaces, and I haven’t finished Blue Prince yet, but it’s pretty cool so far. What is it about indie titles, however you define that term, that doesn’t interest you? Because at this point, it’s most video games (AAA games take a long, long time to make these days), and that would go a long way toward explaining how you feel most good games have microtransactions, if you’re willing to ignore most good games.
You’re not accepting more expensive entertainment either. You’re pirating it. None of these games were made with less effort; they’re typically just made by fewer people. Adding more people to the project doesn’t make the game any better, or else Ubisoft games would be the greatest games ever made. I think I see why you’ve got this perspective that’s completely divorced from reality. Yes, most games have microtransactions if you completely disregard most games. I’d encourage you to give some of those games you’re ignoring a try.
It’s fine if you’re completely ignorant of the great games that have come out lately, but I wouldn’t consider it admirable to be proud of being this ignorant about great games or how they’re made.
The Metal Gear Solid games are some of my favorites, and I’ve played all of them. If you’re referring to the PS1 Crash Bandicoot games, those were made with similar team sizes and “levels of effort” as most games that would be called “indie” are today, for very similar economic reasons. Blue Prince was made over the course of 8 years largely by one person, and I guarantee you he wasn’t trying to find a way to make bank by doing little effort; a famous development talk pointed out that people getting into game development to make big bucks with little effort would have been better off opening a Subway franchise instead. Balatro was also made largely by one person, and it was a nominee for Game of the Year last year. Split Fiction was made with a team size and project scope reminiscent of MGS2 or 3, and it too will be a Game of the Year contender.
You haven’t even played the games I mentioned. How on earth would you know? Also, take a look at the credits of Crash Bandicoot, and learn something about how games are made. 84 people, including the publisher and marketing. Naughty Dog itself was only 9 people. Here’s Indika, a cinematic puzzle/story game, not a far cry from 2018’s God of War without the combat, an indie game from last year; the development studio dwarfs Naughty Dog from the 90s. UFO 50 is an indie game from last year that has 50 full, new, original games contained in it, designed to portray a fictional game development studio’s catalog from the 80s. It was made by 6 people over the course of 7 years. And I’m clueless, huh?
I’m here for another little post to share the interesting things I’ve spotted in gaming! Be it Steam Deck, Linux, general gaming or probably-not-relevant-at-all! And I know, it’s been 2 days since my last of these posts:...
As an alternate perspective, early access isn’t some sad, new state of gaming. Done right, it’s a way to hone in on perfecting a systems-driven game that probably doesn’t really have an end. It’s been used to great effect in roguelikes, Kerbal Space Program, and Baldur’s Gate 3. If anything, the problem with the program now is that there are so many finished games to choose from that it’s a harder sell to try out an early access game.
Seems like a goldmine of content for them to work on for the next decade+. Plenty of people will never experience these worlds or stories due to the turn-based combat, so giving them the Remake treatment could be the only way an audience ever finds them....
FF7 remake is cool for a lot of reasons, but we’ve got countless reasons to support the idea that turn-based combat isn’t the barrier to playing those old games.
To clarify, I’ve been told the layoffs are more than just Respawn and are similar to last year’s February layoff where 670 people were cut. I don’t know the exact number.
But yeah, I’m sure continuing to chase live service as though you’ll ever get Apex Legends to be as successful as it once was will totally work out.
EDIT: furthermore, he says:
Apex Legends and EA Sports FC both missed harder than people realize. Dragon Age barely registers in this.
The decline of a live service game is so inevitable that it seems silly to me to ascribe a reason to it. Eventually, people just want something newer than regular content updates can provide.
Not to be too much of a bummer, but the gaming industry seemingly grew too fast, and the end result is going to be that there just aren’t as many jobs in the industry to be filled by any team once the layoffs are done. Maybe a handful of the people laid off here go on to work together again.
And that trend will continue, which is why console sales are well behind where they were last generation, and it’s why the next Xbox will just run Windows.
They ought to patch out the need for Ubisoft’s launcher. Same goes for EA’s back catalog, for that matter. At least EA’s newest releases don’t come with the launcher.
Even when you buy their games on Steam, there’s an EA launcher there in addition to Steam. This is the case for It Takes Two, for instance, but not for Split Fiction. Split Fiction only uses Steam if you bought it on Steam.
Only the newest ones. They haven’t gone back to remove the requirement from their back catalog, but Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Split Fiction don’t require it now. Meanwhile, Madden 26 still requires it, so I guess it isn’t universal.
I believe it was added after launch. I distinctly remember trying to play this game on the Steam Deck on a train with no internet, and the EA app complained about it and wouldn’t let me launch the game. It’s quite possible that this can be sidestepped by specifically putting the Steam Deck in offline mode, rather than just severing the internet connection, but I didn’t know to try that at the time, and it’s definitely DRM.
Right, but that extra launcher causes problems, so I tend to avoid games that still have it. It’s why I still haven’t played A Way Out but played Split Fiction.
I’ve been playing through the Borderlands games for the first time lately and really enjoying them. I should be through the Pre-Sequel and 3 by then. Also, there’s probably something we can infer about the GTA 6 release date from this, given the leak that Mafia: The Old Country comes out August 8th.
It’s my thought as well, but Ghost of Yotei was scheduled for October already, and Sony would surely know when GTA comes out, so maybe it’s a November game? Borderlands will likely be enough of a time sink that you might want a few months after it before releasing a GTA.
Gaming Website Polgyon Sold To Valnet And Hit With Layoffs (kotaku.com) angielski
Microsoft is raising prices on Xbox consoles, controllers, and games worldwide (www.theverge.com) angielski
Xbox first party titles expected to hit $80 USD this holiday; Game Pass pricing currently unchanged.
Recommendations for "girly" games? angielski
By “girly” games I mean : games that have a soft/pink color scheme. About slice of life (preferably with romance elements), and non-violent with no/minimal combat....
Looking for a local co-op game to play with my SO (Steam Deck) angielski
My SO and I have been having a lot of fun playing co-op games on the Steam Deck connected to the TV. We recently finished Split Fiction and I’m looking for the next cool experience to try out. We enjoy casual co-op games, nothing too hard or violent. EDIT: pixel art is apparently a big turnoff for her so that’s out as well....
Borderlands 4 - State of Play Deep Dive | PS5 Games (www.youtube.com) angielski
Other than what they explicitly call out as a change to address criticisms of Borderlands 3, I don’t know what this does differently from Borderlands 3, but I really like what I see. This looks great.
Apex Legends writer gets laid off 24 hours after the character she wrote is revealed, because that's what the games industry in 2025 looks like (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
This is why we need to have 90 dollar games! /s
ARC Raiders Is the Most ‘It’s Fine’ Game We’ve Played in a While - IGN (www.ign.com) angielski
Steam Deck / Gaming News #13 angielski
I’m here for another little post to share the interesting things I’ve spotted in gaming! Be it Steam Deck, Linux, general gaming or probably-not-relevant-at-all! And I know, it’s been 2 days since my last of these posts:...
Do you think Square Enix should remake other Final Fantasy entries? angielski
Seems like a goldmine of content for them to work on for the next decade+. Plenty of people will never experience these worlds or stories due to the turn-based combat, so giving them the Remake treatment could be the only way an audience ever finds them....
Apex Legends and Star Wars: Jedi Dev Respawn Cancels Another Incubation Project, Lays Off Unknown Number of Individuals (www.ign.com) angielski
Next gen PS and Xbox consoles scheduled for 2027, tipped by cancelled Blade Runner game (www.notebookcheck.net) angielski
Ubisoft patch Splinter Cell Blacklist after 12 years to add achievements (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Wario64: Borderlands 4 is moving its release date up to September 12th (bsky.app) angielski
I’ve been playing through the Borderlands games for the first time lately and really enjoying them. I should be through the Pre-Sequel and 3 by then. Also, there’s probably something we can infer about the GTA 6 release date from this, given the leak that Mafia: The Old Country comes out August 8th.