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Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

arstechnica.com

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Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#111

Post by 542458 »

Sakos wrote: post #100
Reubachi wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Deus Ex is done. A finish to the Jensen story would rely upon Eidos Montreal being able to produce more than one game every 5 years. Since Mankind Divided, they've released only a Guardians of the Galaxy game. MD was a great game, which was according to Eidos Montreal kneecapped by "Square rushing it out". Human Revolution was an even greater game, but still slightly kneecapped by "Square rushing it out".

Why would Embracer buy Deus Ex if they had no intention of doing anything with it? They're not EA.

Embracer bought lots of things, not just Deus Ex. Companies acquire IPs in bulk buys all the time that they never do anything with (Gex being a good example).

That said the linked article says that Eidos Montreal is working on a Deus Ex game, so you might be in luck.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#112

Post by brimble »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #50
baby wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you should play uncharted and the last of us. This is peak AAA

Actually, I greatly prefer Tomb Raider 2013 to any of the Uncharted games I've tried (2, 3, and some of 4). TR2013 is laser focused on cinematic platforming and awe-inspiring set pieces, with much less conventional shooting. I've played through the game several times over the years, and I always come away thinking it's an underrated title. TR2013 doesn't push any boundaries, but it does execute a standard formula mor…

IMO 2 and 4 are easily the best Uncharted games. I wouldn't recommend 1 or 3 at all, despite 3 having a plot that should have really appealed to me. The first one mostly suffers from unrefined mechanics making it a slog, but they fixed that in 2.

But, 2 and 4 are very different. 2 is a solid 3d action-platformer, while my favorite parts of 4 were when it basically just became a "walking simulator"-type game for long stretches, with most of the action and platforming just feeling tacked-on and superfluous.

> (I haven't played The Last of Us though. I hear it's incredible, but I can't deal with the subject matter.)

I should have loved it, but bounced off hard. The prologue had me, but a little while into the game proper I just wanted all the main characters to die, including the one you're really, really not supposed to want to die. They're all horrible and I didn't like or care about them a single bit, to the point that I wanted them to fail. The protagonist in particular, I had to root for him to fail because clearly this humanity-on-the-brink would be better off with one fewer self-interested mass-murders around making things even worse. That's... not a great way to motivate the player.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#113

Post by DashAnimal »

starburst wrote: post #93
DashAnimal wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh. This is not to call you out because I absolutely did the same up until last week (and I'm certain a high percentage of others are the same). I've recently decided to make it a habit of reading articles first (directly from the publisher website) before even visiting Hacker News or Reddit. And after you do that, you start to realize how much discussion is based entirely around headlines. Anyway, from the article:…

And if you would've read the article that linked to that quote you would see that: "Update: This was an out-of-context quote in reference to Eidos Montreal's beginning. Shacknews and the author regret this error in reporting." [1] [1] https://www.shacknews.com/article/130122/deus-ex-ip-will-be-...

Yikes, thanks for pointing that out! Read a few articles about this and multiple of them referred to the press conference announcing a new Deus Ex - disappointing that none of them verified for themselves and shame on me for not following the rabbit hole.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#114

Post by brimble »

garaetjjte wrote: post #105
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it's done well, I'm willing to embrace the cinematic nature of these games. Like a movie, the game is taking me on an adventure, but unlike a movie, I am responsible for whether my character succeeds or fails. If I don't jump at the right time, or deal with the attacker coming up behind me, my character will die and it will be my fault. Sure, I'm aware somewhere in the back of my mind that everything has been la…

>my character will die and it will be my fault. About that... Tomb Raider 2013 has probably the most gruesome death animations I ever encountered in video game.

So much so that it felt like someone involved's... uh, particular interests were coming through in the game, in a way that was kinda off-putting.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#115

Post by bluefirebrand »

morelisp wrote: post #101
robonerd wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few games are for everybody, but Nier: Automata sold millions of copies. The niche of action gamers who like asses is pretty big.

But Nier was even more interesting (formally experimental, better writing - at least in English translation, deeper characterization) and sold poorly. I guess the lesson if you want to make an art game is to make half an art game and the other half ass.

The gameplay of the original Nier is dogshit though.

That leads to poor reviews, which leads to poor sales.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#116

Post by skinnymuch »

smoldesu wrote: post #67
kmlx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The newer tomb raider games are the most AAA games I’ve ever seen uncharted, horizon, god of war, last of us etc

I've never really liked those franchises, even though they do have AAA production value behind them. Uncharted and God of War in particular just feel like button-pressing simulators to me; they feel like 8 hour long cutscenes with a few QTEs and points where you can wiggle your joystick. Maybe I'm just spoiled by gameplay-heavy titles as of late, but a lot of Sony franchises feel like they'd be better as movies inste…

This Uncharted film seems like it really succeeded at the box office. $120M budget. Even if that gets bumped to $200M with marketing and say a bit more for more rev sharing, Sony will still come out with a profit. It’s at almost $150M in the US and might hit $400M worldwide with almost none of it coming from China or similar regions where their cut of ticket sales are much less.

All the non box office revenue kicking in should be decent. The film didn’t do well critically so that isn’t an issue. A recent non box office success example: https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/e2-80-98uncharted-e2-8...

I believe video games movies outside the recent Sonic one[s] are known to not perform well financially so that rep will still be there

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#117

Post by make3 »

haunter wrote: post #18

>The Transaction will assist the Company in adapting to the changes underway in the global business environment by establishing a more efficient allocation of resources, which will enhance corporate value by accelerating growth in the Company’s core businesses in the digital entertainment domain. In addition, the Transaction enables the launch of new businesses by moving forward with investments in fields including b…

For people who don't play MMOs because they're way too addictive, the focus of square on FFXIV has been really disappointing

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#118

Post by skinnymuch »

Shadonototra wrote: post #96
oneoff786 wrote: post #4

The newer tomb raider games are the most AAA games I’ve ever seen. Not saying they’re good, or bad, but every other moment is a handcrafted moment. It sort of works. A lot of it is platforming through crumbling environments. Which is pretty cool. It’s sort of overdone too. SquareEnix felt legendary growing up.

SquareSoft was great, when they merged with Enix to form SquareEnix is when things started to go wrong People mix both SquareSoft's success and Enix and their merge

Yeah I’ve looked at the games catalogue before. It doesn’t seem like Enix brings that much to the table. It seems like they got real lucky being there financially for Squaresoft after their massive film losses.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#119

Post by morelisp »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #115
morelisp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Nier was even more interesting (formally experimental, better writing - at least in English translation, deeper characterization) and sold poorly. I guess the lesson if you want to make an art game is to make half an art game and the other half ass.

The gameplay of the original Nier is dogshit though. That leads to poor reviews, which leads to poor sales.

"Gameplay" is a non-criticism. The combat movement is clunky, especially by western it-sucks-if-I-can't-cancel-everything-all-the-time God of War standards. Plenty of other stuff is amazing.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#120

Post by skinnymuch »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #62

In comparison to other recent sales of big studios and publishers the price just seems absolutely and insanely low. Gearbox 1.3B, Bethesda 7.5B, Insomniac $230M, Wth is Square thinking. Letting Eidos and Crystal Dynamics go for about the same price as Insomniac? Wild just wild.

I was never sure how much of the $7.5B is Bethesda vs sister and parent companies . This deal makes it seem like it’s over $7B of it, but there were a decent amt of sister companies making thing.

Epic Games was just valued at $31.5B in their latest funding round last month.

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