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Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

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Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#571

Post by WorldMaker »

leetcrew wrote: post #512
WorldMaker wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why did they have to mess with the program for andromeda? Obviously everyone has their opinions, but I thought Andromeda the strongest sequel to ME1 story content wise. Andromeda's failings weren't in the story or the content (ME "B-Team" or not, thanks to Anthem's black hole, they wrote most of the strongest story content in all four games), they were technical. EA absolutely should not have pushed BioWare to Fros…

I didn't actually finish the game, so I can't speak too much to the story. for me it wasn't even about the bugs; I just thought the andromeda open world was the blandest of any I'd played at the time. it was like they looked at the lunar rover minigame from me1 and decided to make it the whole game. I wish they had just stuck to the traditional rpg level design of the previous games. I didn't much like the combat mec…

Well yeah, I loved the ME1 Mako and thought that very "Star Trek exploration" concept something strong about ME1 that I thought 2/3 deviated too far from, but I realize how much of a personal taste issue that becomes. MEA's open world could have used more time to bake (and still seems as much a restrictions caused by the Frostbite engine issue as anything, at least to my outside perspective). Also, yes, I find that for an FPS/3PS-focused engine, I don't entirely understand why Frostbite feels so bad at FPS/3PS combat mechanics, but I also have never played Battlefield/Battlefront games so I don't know if that is a BioWare/Mirror's Edge fork(s) specific problem or a general Frostbite problem.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#572

Post by phone8675309 »

ethbr0 wrote: post #568
georgeecollins wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many indie developers are barely making it. Some are killing it. New ideas come from indies, but sometimes from big companies too. Big companies depend on distribution and marketing, small companies depend on innovation. I have been in video games for twenty five years. It has always been like that.

Where it seems to have broken down is via vertical integration. When publishers were publishers and developers were developers (80s and 90s), it seemed like there was healthier competition. Even if there were a lot of abusive deals struck. Now that we have giant, integrated publisher + development conglomerates, there's zero incentive to step out of that structure to publish a popular indie game. It feels like news s…

It feels like the video games industry has done the reverse of Hollywood.

Hollywood went from a vertically integrated system that handled production, distribution, and exhibition by a single entity to a system where production, distribution, and exhibition were done by separate entities.

It feels like game development went the reverse way.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#573

Post by munk-a »

djsumdog wrote: post #211
apatters wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you ate McDonald's every day you'd probably think that there are no good restaurants anymore. My top 4 games by playtime in the last few years were Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, Dwarf Fortress and WoW Classic. Honorable mentions go to Spelunky and Stellaris. It's to everyone's great regret that a single one of these titles was purchased by one of the shitty publishers you mentioned, fortunately it's the one…

There are a lot of great Indie titles, and you can get a lot of them DRM free on Humble or Gog. I've loved a lot of Devolver's stuff. The Red String Club, Hotline Miami I/II, Katana ZERO .. all super incredible games with gameplay and story that's just as fun as the any of the big AAA shops.

Devolver is astounding, they really keep snapping up indie projects that do exceptionally well - don't forget Reigns in that list it's definitely on the lighter end but it's very well put together.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#575

Post by d0gbread »

CivBase wrote: post #473
greenduck wrote: post #42

All of these consolidations of power are nuts. Feels like we need another round of trust busting in the next 10/20 years to help introduce real competition back into the markets.

Normally I would 100% agree, but the barrier for entry is so low that I'm not sure that consolidation in the video game market. There are plenty of issues which plague the video game market (software ownership rights, anti-competitive exclusivity deals, workforce abuse, literal gambling for children, pre-order "culture", etc), but I don't think this is one of them. That said, I don't know if this is necessarily a goo…

I think you're right from a "person looking to play a good video game" perspective but what's easily overlooked is the data to be gained and who gains that data.

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon have unprecedented insight into user behavior and that is power, and that continues to consolidate.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#576

Post by pjmlp »

sitkack wrote: post #494
pjmlp wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carmack is the only reason why OpenGL is at all relevant in PC gaming as it was miniGL that made it popular in first place, against Glide. Later on he changed his mind regarding OpenGL vs DirectX, but there are legions of wannabe game developers that worshiped his opinions regarding OpenGL. See my sibling post regarding his change of opinion.

Technical merits and discussions aside, without Carmack keeping OpenGL alive, we wouldn't have gaming, engineering and visualization support on GPUs to the level we do today on non-windows platforms. If MS kills (migrates) Bethesda off of Vulkan, I'd like the DOJ to censure them.

Contrary to urban myths consoles don't fully support OpenGL, if at all, depending on the model.

Good example of non-windows platforms.

Which I would also add Mac OS, because the only reason it supports OpenGL is Copland's failure, as it was going to use Quickdraw 3D.

And they are on the path to migrate off to Metal anyway.

OpenGL portability on anger is like POSIX or Web development, write once, debug everywhere, rince and repeat.

It is hardly any different than just defining an abstraction layer and loading the best API for the job on each platform.

A 3D API is a tiny portion of a game engine.

By the way, only DirectX works in all Windows modes and Microsoft is keen to contribute to Mesa/Angle instead of allowing ICD drivers on such contexts.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#577

Post by whynaut »

WorldMaker wrote: post #500
Osiris wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trend is definitely moving away from many separate games and toward "living" games. Look at how many games these days end up just doing updates/DLCs over many years rather than releasing whole new versions of the game. Look at Destiny, there was originally planned for Destiny 3, but now the plan is just to make Destiny 2 the only game for the next 10 years with constant content updates. Even now, Destiny 2 of tod…

> Look at Destiny, there was originally planned for Destiny 3, but now the plan is just to make Destiny 2 the only game for the next 10 years with constant content updates. Even now, Destiny 2 of today is a significantly different than Destiny 2 at release. Destiny seems to have gone through a lot of different plans. The plan before Activision was seemingly to stop after 1 and make that the live service game, though…

Not that they were trying to milk it, but that they are currently twisting 2 into something it wasn’t. The game was not originally written to support also being Destiny 3.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#578

Post by ethbr0 »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #560
throwaway13337 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely right. The best games now are from independent developers who are themselves barely making it. The games you listed were some of the breakout successes of indie games but there are a ton of fun, interesting indie games out there that are dying from lack of revenue. There seems to be an overall issue now where the quality of the good produced and the benefit to the consumer is divorced from the valu…

Might be apocryphal, but legend has it Bethesda escaped bankruptcy by taking massive chances with Morrowind. They wanted to go out with a bang, and, creatively, the result was amazing. That success and the fortune they now had to protect seemed to hemorrhage their creativity or vision or concern. After that, we got Oblivion and Skyrim. Nice but very safe and uninspired games. And the best Fallout was the one from Obs…

With limited resources, bad ideas are ruthlessly trashed.

With limitless resources, all ideas are valid.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#579

Post by munk-a »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #513
apatters wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you ate McDonald's every day you'd probably think that there are no good restaurants anymore. My top 4 games by playtime in the last few years were Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, Dwarf Fortress and WoW Classic. Honorable mentions go to Spelunky and Stellaris. It's to everyone's great regret that a single one of these titles was purchased by one of the shitty publishers you mentioned, fortunately it's the one…

Europa Universalis 4 is way better than Stellaris, friend.

It's interesting - they're very different. The historical setting and investment into events to try and keep things on a historical path add a lot to the game IMO by allowing a mostly balanced but asymmetrical game - France can usually ROFLstomp everyone but an overly aggressive France can easily be ROFLstomped themselves. That said, I think EU4 still falls on its face in the late game with mechanics like Absolutism absolutely pulling the breaks off the train and making Ulm WCs possible - in fact EU4 is sorta confusing for that reason, there are essentially two (maybe three if you want to count the reformation+counter reformation) games there and a portion of that playthrough may be more or less appealing to individual players. Stellaris definitely has some distinct phases but without trying to railroad players the mechanics flow from one phase to the next in a much smoother manner.

Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B

#580

Post by kridsdale1 »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #560
throwaway13337 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely right. The best games now are from independent developers who are themselves barely making it. The games you listed were some of the breakout successes of indie games but there are a ton of fun, interesting indie games out there that are dying from lack of revenue. There seems to be an overall issue now where the quality of the good produced and the benefit to the consumer is divorced from the valu…

Might be apocryphal, but legend has it Bethesda escaped bankruptcy by taking massive chances with Morrowind. They wanted to go out with a bang, and, creatively, the result was amazing. That success and the fortune they now had to protect seemed to hemorrhage their creativity or vision or concern. After that, we got Oblivion and Skyrim. Nice but very safe and uninspired games. And the best Fallout was the one from Obs…

Squaresoft did the same thing. Their big creative "here goes the company" game was to be their final project. Final Fantasy.
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