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

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

#161

Post by autokad »

NDizzle wrote: post #134

I hope there is a resurgence of couch co-op games after the lockdown. I have been playing a LOT of games, most of them of just mediocre quality, with my kids. Co-op makes mediocre games fun most of the time. I wish there were more options available for local co-op games. PS: Don't try to play Outward with your novice gamer kids.

I have been playing escape room games on steam with my friend from NYC, lot of fun. We got into it after playing this free two player escape room game: https://www.enchambered.com/puzzles/alone-together/

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

#162

Post by TAForObvReasons »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #150
kosei wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works in the video games industry, I can guarantee it is the lockdown. Stay at home orders align really closely with significant lifts in new players, increased hours played, and many other core metrics across the industry. And many games have seen significant lifts in their existing live service performance (not just new games).

Also could be a large uptick in unemployment. Lots more people sitting at home with nothing to do. Games are on sale most the time and can be had for 10-15 dollars on steam. That's the same price as a case of beer in some places and you get far more entertainment hours out of a video game than a six pack.

Uptick in console sales (far more expensive than $10-15) suggest money isn't the sole motivating factor. If it really were, you'd expect people to flock to netflix and other streaming services which are cheaper

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

#163

Post by laurentdc »

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.

I'm the same. I'm not interested in any of the new releases (besides maybe DOOM) and I've never really been able to enjoy games with a long story, I get distracted too easily and generally prefer TV shows for that type of story-driven entertainment.

I pretty much bought a PS4 only for Rocket League and Gran Turismo and that's all I've played in the last years. Plus a few SNES platformers. Perfect for 20-30 min gaming sessions without too much involvement

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

#164

Post by TAForObvReasons »

NDizzle wrote: post #134

I hope there is a resurgence of couch co-op games after the lockdown. I have been playing a LOT of games, most of them of just mediocre quality, with my kids. Co-op makes mediocre games fun most of the time. I wish there were more options available for local co-op games. PS: Don't try to play Outward with your novice gamer kids.

Do you still have your older video game consoles? Some of the games are still playable and still fun decades later

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

#165

Post by jmiskovic »

kipchak wrote: post #149
NDizzle wrote: post #134

I hope there is a resurgence of couch co-op games after the lockdown. I have been playing a LOT of games, most of them of just mediocre quality, with my kids. Co-op makes mediocre games fun most of the time. I wish there were more options available for local co-op games. PS: Don't try to play Outward with your novice gamer kids.

Co-Optimus is a good resource for finding couch co-op games. https://www.co-optimus.com/games.php?type=couch Some co-op games ones you might enjoy are Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Magicka, overcooked, hammerwatch, Trine, Rayman Legends or human fall flat. There's also a really big back catalog of arcade or earlier console emulatable local multiplayer co-op games, many of which have gotten ports like Chronicles of…

I would add Castle Crashers and Spelunky as personal favorites.

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

#166

Post by billfruit »

Grimm1 wrote: post #121
billfruit wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ra…

That literature does not use visual images is its advantage: it isn't contstrained or restricted to a single visual realisation; every on who reads it's reconstructs in their own unique manner, also same reader may imagine it in a different manner at a different time. Also that mental image is out of the bounds of normal space and time; such freedom is what makes it special in that regard.

Take witcher for example, the games offers a single model of Geralt of Rivia, while someone reading the Witcher novel is free to construct their own model, their own landscape,..etc.

My point is that narratives are not a strong point of games, rather it might even be a weak point; they are not what makes games unique or different from other forms of culture. The more games move away from a narrative structure, the more unique and compelling experiences they are able to offer, is my view of the matter.

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

#167

Post by libria »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #65
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…

The Monkey Island games work really well on mobile devices and they re-released them a few years back.

Aw man, why'd you tell me this? You just cost my company 1 productive-engineer-day.

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

#168

Post by learc83 »

MaximumMadness wrote: post #29
thomashobohm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your source for the "game dev side" is odd-it's from 2009, a recession with markedly different characteristics than this one-and says nothing about the claim you've made about people losing jobs right now. Usually video game sales track the market, this time they're not doing that, which makes this more interesting. Do you have any links indicating that game developers have been losing jobs at an absurd pace?…

Apologies - I linked the wrong article, take a look at this survey[0] where laid-off game devs can submit their work after being laid off for COVID-related reasons [0] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1LiVnFpmDK29UV9xj...

Maybe companies are using COVID as an excuse for layoffs, or it could be that advertising revenue is down for low end mobile games.

But it doesn't really make sense for an industry that is seeing increased revenue to have a downturn.

I'd also be skeptical of that survey, there are a lot of people with game side projects that will do just about anything for exposure.

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

#169

Post by koheripbal »

NDizzle wrote: post #134

I hope there is a resurgence of couch co-op games after the lockdown. I have been playing a LOT of games, most of them of just mediocre quality, with my kids. Co-op makes mediocre games fun most of the time. I wish there were more options available for local co-op games. PS: Don't try to play Outward with your novice gamer kids.

Picture this... co-op VR Elder Scrolls/Skyrim.

Dungeon crawling with the kids would be incredible. Hearing their screams as they get surprised by their first cave skeleton, and then hear them fall over backwards over the coffee table.... nothing would make me happier right now.

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

#170

Post by VRay »

komali2 wrote: post #106
karatestomp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poster must be a PC gamer who doesn't use the Microsoft store (like most PC users who'd identify as gamers, probably?). It hit Steam this year, was on XBone and MS Store in 2018. Personally, I'd forgotten there was a MS store until I looked this up just now.

And lord was it annoying as fuck to get off Microsoft store. It was something like a 50gb download and it could get version desync, the only way to get around was (in my experience) was to completely wipe it and reinstall. But completely wiping was ALSO super hard to do, because it was saved in like... $APPdata or some weird hidden folder. All this on top of the fact that my c:/ drive is tiny and I want to install my…

I'm surprised that the %APPDATA% folder is so mysterious and confusing for someone posting on HackerNews in good faith..
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