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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

#661

Post by gowld »

teddyh wrote: post #461
cpach wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same about the movie business. Indie films can be awesome, but some kinds of movies are hard to do without a large budget.

Pyramids are hard to build without a super-feudal economy and society. But we got rid of that, losing the practical ability to make pyramids in the process, because we value other things like democracy higher.

Huh? Pyramids exist because they are the easiest comparably thing to make. no one makes them because they have better skyscraper designs now and no one cares about making a 4000yr old tomb.

You know what's today's 4000yr long monument to vanity? Elon Musk's orbiting Tesla

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

#662

Post by zamalek »

noncoml wrote: post #656
zamalek wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skyrim was a significant technical advancement of Gamebryo, not just in terms of visual quality or so forth, but also in terms of what was possible with the engine. Fallout 4 was a minor upgrade and could have easily been a total conversion mod for Skyrim - there was no innovation and it did nothing new. Irrespective of whether people enjoyed that re-skinned Skyrim, it was a blatant cash-grab. The argument has nothin…

You do understand that the quality of game engine is completely orthogonal to how good a game is, right? For some reason you believe that your opinion about the game is universally true, while the opinion on the other is personal preference. You are just trying to prove that vanilla flavor is universally better than chocolate. Edit: Retracting "Borderline bigotry."

> quality of game engine is completely orthogonal to how good a game is, right?

That's exactly my point. I haven't once conflated the two, all of your comments have.

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

#663

Post by ThatPlayer »

RealStickman_ wrote: post #366
nonbirithm wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the fact that the Epic Games Store exists is a step towards countering Steam's monopoly on mainstream titles. People complain about the loss of functionality like screenshots or the in-game browser when using Epic. And there are exclusivity deals. Complaints against those things are valid, and the actual implementation of the storefront needs a lot of improvement, but I'm wondering if a Steam monopoly would have…

The exclusivity deals were disruptive because they took games that were promised to come to steam and made them exclusive. The customer has no benefit from the lower cut epic charges. Epic doesn't treat everyone equally. Big games like Cyberpunk 2077 are allowed to also sell on other platforms, while smaller games either go exclusive or go with everyone else. Competition is good, but I'd rather have GOG be that compe…

To me, asking smaller games for exclusivity is just asking for commitment. One of the reason I don't buy games on GoG anymore is that the developers don't commit to updating their GoG version to keep parity with other versions of the game.

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_that_treat_gog_custo...

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

#664

Post by ux-app »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #460
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…

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…

> The best games now are from independent developers

Some Indie games are great, but there are still lot of really great big budget story based games being made that an Indie studio just couldn't produce.

>This is a more profitable strategy than simply trying to make a fun game that people want to play.

Still loads of high quality, very profitable, games being made e.g. RDR2, TLoU2, HZD, Ghost of Tsushima, Uncharted, Spiderman, Doom, Gears, Halo, Ratchet & Clank, Cyberpunk2077 (CDPR can't be considered indie anymore), Forza, Gran Turismo etc.

Sony in particular is really delivering with their single player story based, big budget games.

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

#666

Post by Shebanator »

whynaut wrote: post #569
squarefoot wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best games now are from independent developers who are themselves barely making it. I wish it was true, at least for my favorite genre. Technically speaking, a small team of developers can create excellent games when it comes to creativity, design, playability etc. but for some titles there is need for a good story, then turning it into acceptable animations, large worlds, complex graphics etc. that's where pro…

take a look at Nier: Automata or Dragon Age (1-2, and/or Inquisition). Both easily enjoyable if you like ME.

These are all great games with huge art budgets. Nothing remotely indie about them.

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

#667

Post by staticman2 »

mikewhy wrote: post #514
staticman2 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it works it's fine but sometimes the window store breaks and you basically have to reinstall Windows- in whole or in part- to get it running again. It also is designed to prevent modding and doesn't work with Steam Link for remote play even though normal non-steam games work with Steam Link just fine.

GloSC[1] will get you steam controller mapping / streaming for UWP apps (and more, but I've never had an issue ie adding UPlay games as non-steam games). Here's Minecraft Dungeons running on iOS via Steam Remote Play that I just recorded[2]. Also, Windows Store / GamePass doesn't stop modding, as Crusader King 3 proves. [1]: https://alia5.github.io/GloSC/ [2]: https://imgur.com/a/Zwz9yvV

Thanks. I tried to get a hardware Steam Link working with Gamepass games and failed, I either tried with that App or some other one I forget but ultimately I got it working by installing Moonlight on the Steam Link instead and essentially using it like a remote desktop.

I've read reports of Windows Store overwriting mod files, either this is a game by game problem or maybe it's solved. I do know a year or two ago the Window Store refused to open on a Windows PC of mine so it's a real problem and there's no way to easily reinstall the windows store if it occurs.

Whether Microsoft has solved these issues by now I don't know. I think I eventually got the windows store back with a Windows update.

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

#668

Post by ranbumo »

CivBase wrote: post #598
FloatArtifact wrote: post #535

Bethesda was already trending this way however this has deep implications. Ultimately I think it's going to slowly kill the core of the modding community as modding is forced into the platform and new users are displace the modding culture. The modding will no longer be able to truly edit the engine itself through some reverse engineering and be forced to utilize the APl/scripting framework. Third-party tools will be…

I'm not sure where this came from. Are you saying that Microsoft is opposed to modding?

You can't mod anything that's on gamepads due to the encrypted filestorage it uses. At least that was the case when I checked last year.

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

#669

Post by codezero »

zamalek wrote: post #662
noncoml wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do understand that the quality of game engine is completely orthogonal to how good a game is, right? For some reason you believe that your opinion about the game is universally true, while the opinion on the other is personal preference. You are just trying to prove that vanilla flavor is universally better than chocolate. Edit: Retracting "Borderline bigotry."

> quality of game engine is completely orthogonal to how good a game is, right? That's exactly my point. I haven't once conflated the two, all of your comments have.

I’m feeling like, during the lockdown, we need to have some kind of shit throwing HN comment competition to get all the angst out of our systems.

First rule: make every assumption about the other commenter’s intent. Second rule: never actually directly respond to the other commenter.

It’s like code golf, but to get toxic online interactions out of our systems in a controlled environment. What do you think? :)

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

#670

Post by me_me_me »

Revery wrote: post #507
me_me_me wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal story time, few months back me and my buddy got asked to help our non-dota friend get into the game. We are both playing occasionally in lower brackets. Both of us created new account to so that noobie wouldn't be thrown into deep water right away. Note that me and my friend were 'baby sitting' - playing neutrally not trying to win vs lower rated opponents. Out of 10 games 7 had hardcore smurfs in them. Peop…

Are you sure matchmaking didn't detect you were smurfing?

Nah we both play passive (avoiding aggression ourselves), besides blatant smurfs getting 15 kills by 20min are not tagged as smurfs. I just don't think there are any mechanisms to catch that and match noobies with other noobies. Instead they are sent straight into slaughterhouse.
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