sugar_in_your_tea

@sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works

Mama told me not to come.

She said, that ain’t the way to have fun.

Profil ze zdalnego serwera może być niekompletny. Zobacz więcej na oryginalnej instancji.

sugar_in_your_tea,

The ones you mentioned, as well as:

  • GTA V - I disliked the characters, story was uninteresting, and gameplay felt like a downgrade from GTA IV; graphics were the main attraction there, and that’s not enough for me
  • Borderlands - my fastest “nope, not for me” game I’ve played; I don’t like loot in games, and that’s basically the entire point of the game
  • Skyrim - found it very bland coming from Morrowind; side quests weren’t as interesting, which is pretty much the entire reason I liked Morrowind
  • any competitive FPS (Apex Legends, COD, etc) - I play most games once the get the story, mechanics, etc
sugar_in_your_tea,

TL;DR - I’m a fan of tighter, focused experiences with a strong element of puzzle solving, and I’m generally not a fan of sandbox-y experiences.

Some of my favorite games are Zelda, Ys, or Half Life. Loot in those games is typically an intentional part of the progression, and the gameplay feels like an action-y puzzle. Resources have a specific purpose, and wasting them has consequences.

Using a slightly different weapon, item, cosmetic, etc doesn’t excite me at all, I am mostly there for the story and gameplay. To me, shopping feels like poor game design and essentially covering for the player missing something important. So games with extensive store/inventory mechanics feel poorly designed, on average.

There’s one big exception here: if the economy of the game is integral to the core loop. For example, I love Recettear, which makes loot and inventory management a core mechanic in an interesting way. I’m also working on my own game with a player-driven economy (e.g. if you sell a lot of something, you get less for each additional one, it’s cheaper for AI/other players to buy, and NPCs will slowly distribute the items around the game world).

On those same lines, I generally don’t like things with crafting, enchanting, etc, unless it’s an interesting, core gameplay mechanic. I’m very goal oriented, so the journey is less important than the destination, so I like constant “mini-destinations” (boss fights, puzzles, etc). I almost never replay games, unless there’s a different set of challenges to explore (e.g. I loved each of the three characters in Ys Origin, but won’t bother playing Morrowind twice).

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yup, I love the ability-based progression in Zelda, older Ys, Metroidvanias like Ori and Hollow Knight, etc.

I don’t like loot for the sake of loot. For example, Borderlands prides itself on having 16-17M weapons (they’re procedurally generated). That’s not interesting to me, that’s tedious. I much prefer the Half-Life approach (14 in original, 10 in Half Life 2), where each weapon fills a niche and you pick based on what you need.

A lot of people love loot in games, such as in MMORPGs, Bethesda-style RPGs, and Diablo-style RPGs. The latter is the most frustrating because many people mean Diablo-style when they say “ARPG,” whereas I mean Zelda/Ys-style.

sugar_in_your_tea, (edited )

Yup. I’m a fan of lore in a lot of series, but that’s not why I play Zelda.

I play Zelda because it’s fun. I like the creative puzzles that aren’t super hard, but hard enough to require a little bit of thinking. I like that there’s progression, but no leveling system, so a lot of the progression is learning to use new tools. I like the silly side quests.

I’ve never really been interested in Zelda lore, so I’m honestly okay with things not quite lining up. I guess I see each entry as a separate universe where Link saves Zelda in a different way each time. Zelda games rarely have direct sequels, and I think that was the real mistake this time around. Just let me fight Ganon or whatever in a new cycle every time, I don’t need any kind of story coherency.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I think it still is, it’s just that game devs have found a recurring revenue model that works similarly to licensing: microtransactions.

I can see Disney wanting back in now that MTX is socially acceptable. Milking the same IP for decades is exactly their MO.

sugar_in_your_tea, (edited )

I don’t think I have any of them, but I’ll likely get a Zachtronics game (not sure which) and maybe Human Resource Machine. Those have been on my wishlist for a while, but I haven’t seen a lot of these so there are probably a bunch of other gems.

sugar_in_your_tea,

It’s still there, I’m not sure what your point is.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yeah, I haven’t played any of them. I’ll give it a shot, thanks!

sugar_in_your_tea,

I still hear about them and buy from them, but I buy a lot less because:

  1. They were bought by IGN, so they’re a for profit group now
  2. Changed Choice to offer major AAAs more often instead of being focused on indies
  3. They set slider for minimum percent to Humble in bundles to 15% (I used to give about 20-30% to Humble, now I do 15% as a form of minor protest)
  4. Bundles often come with coupons for the store instead of just being bundles of games, and the $1 tier is either complete trash or non-existent

And so on. Basically, they’ve gotten more corporate, so they’re less unique vs the competition. In fact, I’ve picked up more bundles from Fanatical than Humble in the last couple years because I no longer feel a preference for Humble, and now just go where the deals are.

I’m guessing some or all of that is why the sources you follow don’t mention it as much. It’s still very much a thing though.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I don’t think that’s necessarily true. The reason wages are low is because the games industry attracts a lot of talent, so companies can get good talent for less. So I don’t expect unionizing to help in terms of quality of work produced, but it should improve wages and working conditions.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Maybe, but I feel like any quality gains would be minimal since people are already passionate about their roles (else why would those roles be so desired?). Then again, the Valve model really works, so it really depends on whether unions can change company culture, or if they’ll just secure better working hours and pay. The culture is the problem, and I’m not convinced a union can fix that.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Huh, well fear is a very different thing than stress. Once your stress turns into fear, you’re no longer personally invested in the project and are merely concerned about your own survival.

The video games industry definitely comes with a lot of stress, but they rely on passion to get value out of those long hours. This sounds like a situation of completely awful management, which won’t be fixed with a union (at least not immediately), since a bad manager can make life suck even if you have decent benefits, reasonable work hours, etc.

Then again, I don’t have a lot of details to go on, just that there’s allegations of “fear” at Daedelic.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Nah, Intel is already doing that. Valve getting into graphics cards would be a colossal mistake. That’s not in their wheelhouse at all.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yup, Intel is struggling to enter the market, and they’ve been building similar chips for years. This just isn’t an area for someone like Valve to break into.

Maybe they could make a good cooler design or something, but they’re going to be using off the shelf chips, or maybe slightly altered custom chips like they did with the Steam Deck.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I’d probably buy one if it worked okay on Linux and wasn’t made by Facebook.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I don’t really care about EGS, I’m more concerned about Unreal Engine. If they keep dumping money into EGS exclusives and whatnot, it could impact UE investment, which would be bad for the industry.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yeah, I’m a parent and I take my kids with me to the gas pump quite often. We shop at Costco and fill up before or after. I honestly don’t see an issue at all, my kids know gas pollutes (I tell them frequently even though they’re in elementary school), and they know why I continue to buy gas (EVs are too expensive, inconvenient for longer trips, and have a fire hazard).

So no, I don’t have a problem with fossil fuels being a thing in games. I do have a problem with advertisements in games generally, and ads marketed to kids specifically. So if this was an ad for a socially acceptable business (take your pick), I’d still be opposed. Keep that nonsense away from my kids.

sugar_in_your_tea,

So they’d tell their parents to fill up at Shell instead of Chevron or whatever. It’s not like kids are going to want more fossil fuels, they’ll just want to shop at the cool brand instead of the less cool brand.

sugar_in_your_tea,

They went bankrupt, and then they were bought by someone else. So this is a new Telltale, and apparently they’re having similar issues.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I’m happy to give indies a pass because they generally don’t have the resources to know what accessibility settings people need, and they often don’t go through the major reviewers. I think people should absolutely point out those issues, but I really expect new releases to be fully accessible.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yeah, the number of games that list epilepsy warnings is way too high, devs should just not do it. I am not sensitive to flashing lights yet I still hate it.

So devs, if you feel like you need to put a warning, just fix the game to not do that.

sugar_in_your_tea,

They have two options when it comes to a port:

  • do it right
  • pay someone to do it quickly

They have consistently done the second, which makes absolutely no sense to me since doing it right would mean they could bring great old games to a new audience. All they need to do is increase framerate caps (and fix bugs caused by that), increase render resolution, and improve texture quality. They should have all of the original files, so this shouldn’t require a ton of effort, even if the code is a mess.

GTA SA and friends was terrible because it didn’t look anything like the originals since it was a mobile port. Nobody asked for big changes, just a few QOO updates. The same is true for RDR, we just want to play it on PC with higher FPS and whatnot, we don’t expect anything groundbreaking. If it’s easier, they could port the campaign to RDR2 (they already have a lot of the models) and then not have to maintain the older codebase. Surely that’s an option too.

sugar_in_your_tea,

That seems to be Valve’s MO. They don’t make a ton of games, but they’re pretty much all fantastic.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I want Just Dance, but for racing wheels.

sugar_in_your_tea,

IDK, it kinda loses that “old west” feel imo. It looks nice, but I don’t think it feels as fitting for the time period it’s set in, but maybe that’s just be after watching lots of movies set in the time period.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Same. I guess I’ll wait until they change that.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Their loss I guess.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yeah, if I get it, I’ll probably buy a license and then play the cracked version. However, I’m not likely to go through the effort, so I guess we’ll see.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I just finished Skyward Sword last weekend, and my kids wanted to see me play on Hero mode, so that’s what I’m doing.

sugar_in_your_tea,

You don’t even need to try very hard, just throw in some nonsense and someone will make up a plausible explanation.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I’m surprised my 6650XT is so low, it’s like the perfect mid range card imo. My wife’s 6700XT apparently sold a lot better though.

sugar_in_your_tea,

They’re both poor terms.

To me, “redundancy” means someone you don’t need, as in, their job is worthless, and “layoff” means the company can’t afford to keep everyone, so they’re temporarily reducing the workforce. What we see so often isn’t either of those, it’s just headcount reduction or downsizing.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yeah, layoffs feel temporary (like furloughed government employees). I dislike both terms though, I prefer “downsizing” or something like that to clearly indicate that it’s not temporary and your job wasn’t worthless, it’s just that the company needs fewer people employed to meet budget targets.

sugar_in_your_tea,

The point of first party exclusives is to make money from your store long term. If they make their first party titles available on other platforms, fewer people would buy a PlayStation, which means less long term royalties from store sales.

So you limit the customer base for your first party titles, but ideally you make a ton more on your store fees. That’s the same reason Valve makes first party titles, to get people on Steam, not to make money from game sales.

What they should do is make a handheld that can play PS4 titles. That attracts a different demographic and keeps control of the store royalties. But they really need to make sure it works well, since it’ll be competing with the Switch and Steam Deck (and similar handheld PCs).

sugar_in_your_tea,

I doubt it. Fortnite alone probably covers all of those free games and then some, it’s an insane cash cow. Add to that Unreal Engine revenue and they’re not hurting at all for money.

Layoffs just means they probably finished the bulk of UE5 dev and are seeing softening revenues with the COVID spike being over, so they don’t have as much demand to get that and related projects done sooner. Amazon and other big tech firms have done similar layoffs, and it’s not because they’re losing money, but because they’re seeing an end to the crazy growth in the gaming industry due to COVID-19 demand changes.

So no, I really don’t think Epic is hurting for money, they’re just cutting costs to improve margins now that revenue is likely falling.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Sure, it’s possible, but I think unlikely. This sounds like the normal BS reasons companies give when their investors want better margins. I’m guessing Tencent isn’t happy with profit margins and wants a better short term return for their stake.

But you’re right, it’s all speculation at this point.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Nah, GME to the moon!

sugar_in_your_tea,

Nah, GME is there. Screw em.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Why? The Total War series is awesome.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Is that… comfortable? That sounds like a really awkward way to play. Any reason you didn’t do all in on the controller or keyboard+mouse?

sugar_in_your_tea,

And pretty much any USBC dock will work as well.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Just do like Baldur’s Gate and release a portion as early access, then release the full game on all platforms when it’s ready. Ideally skip early access and just release when it’s actually ready, but the early access option is acceptable.

sugar_in_your_tea,

IDK, just because Microsoft has products in a variety of categories doesn’t pose problems in itself, the problem is when those products command a significant chunk of the market share to the point where they can control a big chunk of the market. From your list:

  • GitHub - problematic because it’s the biggest code hosting platform around, but on its own isn’t a big issue
  • Teams - doesn’t really dominate, and many orgs use Slack or something else for communication
  • Xbox and XGS - not an issue unless either dominates their respective markets; buying large publishers like Activision is a serious issue
  • Azure - they’re like second or third, so there should be a close watch to make sure there isn’t monopolistic behavior with integrations with GitHub, Xbox, etc

And so on. I don’t personally think they should be broken up, but acquisitions in sectors where they already have significant market share should be blocked.

sugar_in_your_tea,

integrates npm… VSCode

Both of these are free and open source. There’s a paid hosting tier for NPM, but it’s easy to self-host that.

But your larger point stands. The more tools they can package together, the more they can push out competition. Why use Slack if it’s a pain to integrate with GitHub and Office, but Teams works smoothly? This is certainly not unique to Microsoft, look at Apple as a clear example. The App Store forbids competition with Safari’s rendering engine, and that limits the competition other browsers can provide. Apple has its own ecosystem around iMessage and iCloud that don’t work outside that ecosystem. So if we’re going to make rules that target Microsoft’s bundling of functionality, it should also target Apple as well.

I’m less concerned about price and more concerned about exposed capability. IMO, Teams shouldn’t have any different access to Office or GitHub as Slack has. Once you have a large market share, you need to be extra careful about how your apps communicate to ensure that other apps can directly compete.

And as you mentioned, I think defaults are part of the problem. Mobile Safari isn’t dominant on iOS because it’s better, it’s dominant because it’s the default. Same with Edge on Windows and Chrome on Android. If there’s competition for a given product, it shouldn’t be bundled with the OS, and if the product is important for most users, it should prompt the user for what to use. I can see exceptions here for basic functionality (e.g. a dialer on a phone, or file browser on a desktop OS), but that definition needs to be very restrictive.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Microsoft has already been evil, and I think there’s a good chance they’ll do it again if given the chance. The best company IMO is someone who is in second or third place (e.g. AMD v Intel, MS v Google, etc). As long as there are at least three competent players in a field, things tend to stay pretty competitive.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I don’t see what that has to do with Steam, digital goods are regulated differently than physical goods.

sugar_in_your_tea,

That sounds like a separate thing entirely. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Valve has any say in how keys not sold through the Steam storefront are resold, so supposedly the lawsuit should target whoever is distributing keys in that way. AFAIK, Steam only offers two ways to buy a game–buy the game for yourself and buy as a gift–and in neither case does Steam offer the keys directly to users.

And then there’s this from the article:

In a statement back in 2021, Valve said that the charges didn’t pertain to PC games sold on Steam, but that it was accused of locking keys to particular territories at the request of publishers. It added that it turned off region locks for most cases (other than local laws) in 2015 because of the EU’s concerns.

So AFAIK Valve isn’t distributing resellable keys that are region locked, it’s region-locking at the point of purchase and allowing developers to request region-locked keys. So it would be on publishers to abide by EU laws, no?

The again, I don’t live in the EU, nor have I ever bought a physical Steam key (not sure if Valve directly offers that in any way).

sugar_in_your_tea,

Is that ever claimed anywhere? AFAIK, VR has just been marketed as a new way to experience a virtual world, not as the only way to be immersed in a virtual world.

I think VR would be really cool, but it just doesn’t seem to fit with my lifestyle at this point. And I’m not sure if I would be able to handle it since I and my spouse get motion sick quite easily.

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