US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home • Hacker News Board

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#121

Post by Grimm1 » Fri, May 15, 2020, 5:10 PM UTC

billfruit wrote: post #82

Grimm1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your thinking is so antiquated name me a good novel and I'll give a video game that matches it in narrative content. And playing music and gardening? Please.

While I don't agree with any attempt to see games as lower form of culture, I don't think that story telling/ narrative is something that games do well. I personally find narratives in games actually detract from the experience, and many games are better from having no or only minimal story built into it, and more like being sandboxes: -Cities: Skylines -Just Cause 2 -Prison Architect -Kerbal Space Program -Pool Nati…

I can offer some counters to that off the bat,

Nier Automata, Deus Ex, Destiny, The Witcher, Stanley Parable, Undertale

If anything I think games with the right attention can have better narratives than literature because they aren't limited to words in assisting the narrative with visualization and depiction of events / emotion.

Much like pulp fiction and early sci-fi were treated as second class literature games range the spectrum as well. I think we can likely both continue to find examples to fit our points and it just shows the range games have as a medium.

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#122

Post by IggleSniggle » Fri, May 15, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

jackklika wrote: post #75

k__ wrote: post #55

Half-OT: Currently I'm playing Stardew Valley on my FireHD10, I never played a mobile port that had THAT good controls. I also got Terraria and Minecraft and they are pretty bad to play with awkward on-screen controls. Does anyone here know of games that have good mobile ports? Or even good mobile games to start with? Most "native" mobile games just were really basic, full of in-app purchases etc. so I was looking mo…

Mindustry[1] is an open source game that works perfect on mobile, especially if you have a big screen. You can find it on app stores or download it manually. It's like factorio but more tower-defense and round-based. Much more approachable while still being really fun. [1] https://github.com/Anuken/Mindustry

This game destroyed me. It works well even if you don't have a big screen (relatively speaking anyway. I played it on an iPhone 7. You can't really get screens smaller than 4.7 anymore).

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#123

Post by noarchy » Fri, May 15, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #100

ArtWomb wrote: post #3

I'd argue it's not just lockdown. This has been an epic release year: Animal Crossing, Half Life Alyx, Doom Eternal, Gears Tactics, Valorent, Sea of Thieves. And on and on. Paper Mario: Origami King trailer looks like so much fun there is no reason to leave the house this summer ;)

I'd argue it's not just lockdown I saw a news article a couple of weeks ago that in my city, Xboxes, Switches and PlayStations are very hard to come by. I don't think people are dropping hundreds of dollars mid-cycle to buy new machines for the games. To a much lesser extent, I have done this, too. My local used video game store started doing free home delivery, and I picked up a half-dozen Atari 2600 carts that were…

I would even say it is nearing end-cycle for consoles, given that we'll see a next-gen Xbox and PS by the end of this year.

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#124

Post by sebiche » Fri, May 15, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

burntoutfire wrote: post #37

Grimm1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your thinking is so antiquated name me a good novel and I'll give a video game that matches it in narrative content. And playing music and gardening? Please.

> our thinking is so antiquated name me a good novel and I'll give a video game that matches it in narrative content. "Brothers Karamazow"?

Wii Sports

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#125

Post by Grimm1 » Fri, May 15, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

option wrote: post #98

Grimm1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nier Automata

lol

'Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.'

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#126

Post by WillPostForFood » Fri, May 15, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #116

ArtWomb wrote: post #3

I'd argue it's not just lockdown. This has been an epic release year: Animal Crossing, Half Life Alyx, Doom Eternal, Gears Tactics, Valorent, Sea of Thieves. And on and on. Paper Mario: Origami King trailer looks like so much fun there is no reason to leave the house this summer ;)

As a Gears fan, Gears Tactics is a money grab. Gears 5 was CoDified, still happily playing Gears 4 though. MCC for PC just came out. Can't believe I can play Halo 2 again!

No way a turn based tactical game is money grab. More like a niche nod to hardcore fans. They haven't even released it on consoles yet.

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#127

Post by GrumpyYoungMan » Fri, May 15, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

paulryanrogers wrote: post #48

wayneftw wrote: post #36

I think I must be a simpleton compared to many people. I am able to play the same video game for years and years before getting bored with it. Currently that game is Rocket League. Before that, it was Skate, Skate 2 and Skate 3 and before that...World of Warcraft.

On the other end I sometimes just enjoy the shopping, buying, collecting games. Even just collecting digital games on sale can be entertaining in its own way. As I age and my family grows it's becoming obvious I'll never complete many of them. But that's OK too.

Whenever I look at my pile of shame, I keep promising myself I'll sit down and play every one of them when I retire.

(All the while, there's a little voice in the back of my head snickering and calling me a liar.)

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#128

Post by watwut » Fri, May 15, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

daxorid wrote: post #17

brenden2 wrote: post #11

FWIW I have been spending a lot of time playing games because, well, there's not much else to do.

Gardening, home improvements, personal or side development projects, exercise, online courses, playing music, etc. There are plenty of activities to do that moves one's life forward, rather than the utter stagnation that is television and video games. edit: To be clear, leisure activities definitely have their place. But to loosely paraphrase JC, while playing games is fine, it's much better to make them.

This comment being downvote is incredibly odd. Yes, I can confirm that there are plenty of activities programmer can do at home that are not gaming.

Preferring gaming is one thing, getting offended over suggestion it is actually possible to be happy at home without gaming is ... odd.

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#129

Post by Grimm1 » Fri, May 15, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

sebiche wrote: post #124

burntoutfire wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our thinking is so antiquated name me a good novel and I'll give a video game that matches it in narrative content. "Brothers Karamazow"?

Wii Sports

I actually love this comment, because personally, Dostoevsky doesn't rank very highly in terms of literature for me.

Maybe because I feel like his examination of human nature or the bleak reality of things feels less impactful now that its such a common thing to write about. I can recognize his historical importance but in modernity his work I believe falls behind.

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#130

Post by huntertwo » Fri, May 15, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #119

ArtWomb wrote: post #3

I'd argue it's not just lockdown. This has been an epic release year: Animal Crossing, Half Life Alyx, Doom Eternal, Gears Tactics, Valorent, Sea of Thieves. And on and on. Paper Mario: Origami King trailer looks like so much fun there is no reason to leave the house this summer ;)

I don't think it's just that. People are just buying more. I run a smallish hobby site and monetize it with Amazon affiliate links. I've had Black Friday-tier sales all of April and May. I suspect Amazon's numbers for this quarter are going to surprise a lot of people

Congrats on your success, I suspect they're not gonna be surprising for many. People can't spend in stores and are home all day, Amazon seems like a natural, almost obvious, winner. People who haven't seen a downturn in income have seen a reduction in places where they can spend money, not a reduction in reason to spend money.