definitely licensing issues, 100%. The record company owns the old song and doesn’t want to allow it in the game again, at least not for a reasonable price. Could the artists re-record songs to bypass the record company, like Taylor Swift did? Yeah sure, but only if they are still around, and only if they care that much about being in the Tony Hawk remake. Re-recording songs includes re-doing all the mixing and mastering, and that is a decent chunk of time and money for essentially no return on investment. Most of the bands in original Tony Hawk that are still around are pretty focused on ROI at this point.
there are apparently a few cases where they didn’t get the same song, but they got a new song from the same artists. But yeah…it’s a bummer from a game preservation perspective
I played for a lil while, trying to get into it to play with my friends. The only MMO i’ve gotten DEEP into was the original Guild Wars, and that is obviously a bit different from other MMOs, so I wasn’t sure if it would be my cup of tea. I ended up falling off before finishing the base Realm Reborn MSQ. I found the same problem I always have with MMOs - the initial loop is really fun and addicting and I’m enjoying learning the world, but then I hit a point where doing the quests just feels like a slog to endgame. I did some dungeons with my friends once that was possible, and it mostly just felt like I was struggling to keep up with something that everyone else had done 50 times over already. It stunk that I had to do story quests solo, and could only really party up for dungeons. Much preferred the GW experience of playing the MSQ together.
Idk, I’m not trying to trash on the game, I can tell it’s really well made and I’m happy for all y’all. It just didn’t resonate for me.
Regrettably…they kinda do. At least for studios like Obsidian and Double Fine, the landscape has become very grim. They are studios of a size that is very difficult to keep afloat in this environment. Investor funding in the gaming segment has dried up post-COVID, and these kinds of mid-level (or higher) devs were very reliant on that kind of funding. In light of that, these studios may have seen Microsoft as something of a safe harbor. They knew these layoffs were always a possibility, but I think it was better for them than the alternative. Or at least, it was the best choice for the people leading these studios prior to their respective Microsoft acquisitions. The devs that are being laid off are not the same people that signed off on the acquisition.
This is an incredible turnaround after it seemed like the initiative was stalling just a few weeks ago. Keep those signatures rolling if you can! As others mentioned, there is still a value in new signatures because some will be invalidated. Let’s finally get a win for media preservation, eh?
Luke Plunkett asking the real questions. It must be nice to be a CEO, just failing constantly with the security that you will continue to make millions per year for years to come. If I made this many miscalculations in my job I’d be unemployed within 6 months.
This is how I think about socialism when arguing for it in a modern context. Capitalism is a game where we compete and there are winners and losers. Okay, I mean Americans love competition and games, so that’s all well and good. But games have RULES, and if we are playing football and someone gets hurt, we don’t just dump them in the trash and keep playing. We pause or stop the game, we make sure they are doing okay, we get them to medical care if they need it. Then and only then do we resume playing the game. This is what socialism is in my mind - we still have a free market and use competition to breed innovation, but we also make sure everyone is doing okay before we continue the game. As is, it seems like our fearless leaders think that if you lose at the game, you deserve to die.
At the least, we need to get back to REGULATED capitalism. The fact that the Activision deal was allowed to go through is preposterous. Just like everything in our society involving corporations and absurd amounts of money. What’s the point of obliterating regulations if the corporations help nobody except their wealthy shareholders?
Thank you for your detailed thoughts! I haven’t heard some of these critiques yet, esp from someone that is deep in on Rocket League, and they are very interesting. I agree that they really have to fix that net code if they want this game to take off. Hopefully they are furiously toiling away on that as we speak.
Yay this is so cool, and I appreciate the well-thought out “PEAQ”! Games as a medium need all the archive help they can get. My only crit is that, because this is a “history”, I would prefer a chronological list over an alphabetical list. Maybe Dot is working on making that an option, idk, but I appreciate the work all the same!
EDIT: Some Highlights for me:
I appreciate the “H-rry P-tt-r” choice.
This is my first time hearing about that hidden track on Guitar Hero.
I did not know that one of the original Pokemon VAs was a trans lady!! Sososo cool
AND she did a bunch of deeper voices in the Sonic games? Wtf she is so talented!!
The Wolfenstein 3D and Doom drama was an interesting read.
Honestly shocked that I did not know more about Rebecca Heineman and Jenell Jaqauys, given how prolific they are on this list. I am very immersed in games media, far more than the average gamer, and I really had no clue. I think that alone highlights how important this work is!!