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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

#171

Post by koheripbal »

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...

hardly an unbiased source

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

#172

Post by koheripbal »

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 ;)

Most of those games are not that good. Uptick in traffic is perfectly correlated to school closings.

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

#173

Post by simonhughes22 »

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.

Streets of Rage 4 is very good. It's cartoony violence, so probably Ok unless you have very young kids.

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

#174

Post by nilkn »

mercer wrote: post #103
grawprog wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For in instance Cities Skylines building out cities leaves me feeling empty instead of accomplished. Actually, I understand exactly what you mean. I spent yesterday trying that game. I ended up getting it for free. In the beginning it was fun, I was excited to watch the city grow. By the time I finished, I felt like I'd just wasted hours doing absolutely nothing. Everything was shallow and pointless. Didn't help tha…

I recently started playing Cities and felt the same way. But then I also started playing Minecraft again on server set up by a friend of a friend. And the feeling is completely different. While most of us (5 players) spend out times doing our own thing much of the time, just the occasional visit (and surprises left behind) makes all the 'pointless' home improvement feel worthwhile. And it actually is, to a degree. I'…

This has been the magic of Animal Crossing for me too. Honestly it barely even counts as a multiplayer game -- you can essentially just visit each others' islands and run around making animated gestures -- but somehow being able to have a friend or brother or sister come check out your island (and being able to visit theirs) transforms the game and gives meaning to everything you're doing.

Beyond that, I've been sharing an island with my partner, and it's just been a joy-filled adventure getting to see the work each day that the other has done on the island and their house.

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

#175

Post by CocaKoala »

autokad wrote: post #161
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/

A game with similar vibes that works really well over conference call is Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. Even better, only one person need own a copy of the game for others to play with them.

For anybody who's unfamiliar, the game is thus: one person is stuck in a room with a bomb. They can pick the bomb up, manipulate it, and interact with it, but a clock is ticking and the bomb is going to explode. On the phone with you are the Bomb Defusing Experts, who are armed with a Bomb Defusing Manual for the bomb in question (free PDF, www.bombmanual.com if you're curious). Unfortunately, the manual was written by somebody who loves inscrutable graphs and hates the person reading it.

The person with the bomb has to describe the modules on the bomb, e.g. "I see three red wires, a blue wire, and a white wire". The people with the manual then need to instruct them on which wires to cut in order to defuse the bomb correctly, e.g. "Three red wires? Cut the second wire. Wait, hang on - does the bomb have a parallel port? Okay, cut the third wi-WAIT, how many batteries does it have? Did you cut the third wire? thank god, definitely don't cut that one."

The bombs can get hard and stressful, but it's a fun asymmetric game that works really well over voice chat.

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

#176

Post by zhoujianfu »

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 wish Mario Odyssey (2?) had a co-op mode. I want four of us running around the same world looking for power moons at the same time..

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

#177

Post by Grimm1 »

billfruit wrote: post #166
Grimm1 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, t…

I got your point, I disagree and continue to.

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

#178

Post by pyromine »

huntertwo wrote: post #130
puranjay wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not entirely true, expectations are not solely based on "I have a job" they are also based on the expectation of "Can I get a new job if I lose my job" among other complexities, there will certainly be a reduction in marginal propensity to consume even among those who have maintained their employment.

So yes, Amazon may well be a winner because of the shift, but they are winning a larger fraction of a smaller pie.

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

#179

Post by dv35z »

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.

(1) Any suggestions for couples? Like something peaceful and fun, maybe open world?

My GF and I played Overcooked 2. She loved it, but honestly I found it way too stressful for me (I felt like I was at work during a Sev1!). I've always played FPS & RTS, and so entire genres of games are just so unfamiliar to me, but I'd love to explore some and see what else fits.

Just the other day, we tried Stardew Valley. I never thought that kind of game would interest me, but it's fun walking around the world, going into town, interacting with NPCs. I think those "slightly-more-structured-than-Minecraft" games would be cool.

(2.1) What's the game State of the Art for "a group of friends commanding a space ship"? I experimented with Pulsar: Lost Colony a few years back, and heard that Elite Dangerous has some new coop stuff in it. I'd honestly love a "first person perspective" version of Homeworld 2. You and some friends are manning a frigate, battling it out with NPC ships, etc.

(2.2) Other small group of friends games? I've got a friend who is setting up a minecraft server to play in, but I'd rather have some other small group game where we could team up and either build something (e.g. minecraft clones, or other open world things), or even perform adventures/quests together (I've never played any RPG, and am not particularly interested in the magic/fantasy genre). I know it's a bit dark, but I've always thought a multiplayer/co-op version of This War of Mine would be absolutely incredible.

Anyway, if anyone has strong opinions on this, please share!

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

#180

Post by kungato »

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…

Unfortunately these and maybe 4 more games mentiones below are also almost the only coop games. Ive been trying to find good coop games for playing with my gf or family but the selection is small and especially if you want something for non gamer people. Split screen seems to be a thing of the past
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