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Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

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Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#101

Post by jarsin »

DannyPage wrote: post #3

Hi-Fi Rush was a fantastic game, won major awards, showed off the promise of XBox Game Pass… and for their efforts their studio has been shut down. There have multiple instances of this in just the past few weeks; are publishers really going to just bet on their prime AAA titles (Call of Duty, Halo, GTA6, etc) and nothing else? And those games either take a lot of rotating studios and a long development cycle to rele…

Haven't you heard and seen the latest VC craze? AI is going to autogenerate millions of games, movies, and books all with the click of a button.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#102

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

jerf wrote: post #71
Apocryphon wrote: post #31

Looking Glass, Irrational Games, Ion Storm, Arkane. Wonder if immersive sims are fated to be an over-ambitious, under-sold, mass audience-unfriendly genre made by doomed studios.

Immersive Sim + "I have to keep up with the latest AAA game standards for graphics" probably is doomed. We really need to give them permission to not have to be up to that graphics standard. Permission to not have to be fully voiced would be nice too. Right now they're in an ugly place where they're still awfully large for an indie or AA studio, but an AAA studio still largely won't make anything that doesn't drive t…

There is no doubt AI won't be used to fix the fully voiced issue. That is such a no-brainer.

As to graphics, my favorite games of the past 5 years were average graphics at best. (Subnautica, Outer Wilds, Hollow Knight, Hades... Red Dead 2 ok not that one)

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#103

Post by hbn »

Just yesterday there was a poll going around on Twitter of which of the big 3 gaming companies, Nintendo, Sony, and MS is the "least bad" or something like that, and I saw a lot of people saying Microsoft. I figured they'd do something stupid soon to remind everyone how Microsoft operates, but didn't think it would be so soon!

I can't believe these studio acquisitions still aren't being blocked. At what point will they finally acknowledge the blatant anti-competition Microsoft regularly demonstrates by buying any studio that gets too big, letting them rot, and then killing them off?

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#104

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

mepian wrote: post #49
Apocryphon wrote: post #31

Looking Glass, Irrational Games, Ion Storm, Arkane. Wonder if immersive sims are fated to be an over-ambitious, under-sold, mass audience-unfriendly genre made by doomed studios.

Arkane's Prey is one of my favorite games ever, shame they were "rewarded" like this.

I liked it, but couldn't get past "this is just Bioshock in space with a more mysterious plot". Then the reveal, well, IDK.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#105

Post by Apocryphon »

utensil4778 wrote: post #84
vel0city wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Condition Zero and Source released in 2004. Global Offensive released in 2012, eight years later. Counterstrike 2 released in September 2023, eleven years later . Counterstrike isn't the game to point to for re-releasing the same thing over and over.

Counternite, fort of duty, whatever. I care so little for this class of game that I can't be bothered to spend the brain space to keep them separate. Not saying they're good or bad, I'm just not interested in the slightest.

Those are all different genres of FPS

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#106

Post by somenameforme »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #97
somenameforme wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty easy to convert your TV to a PC console. Just grab a HDMI/DisplayPort cable and some USB cables for controllers. Wire your TV up, start Steam Big Picture mode, done. You now have a console with a zillion awesome games in the exact same place you had the console connected. Here's [1] the Steam page for split screen games. Currently there are 934. Can't go wrong with Earth Defense Force! And no you don't ne…

I'd really love cables from my office to my livingroom.

Not sure if you're being snark, like referring to your office at work, but we did this and it works pretty well. We ran the cables along the edges of wall/floor using little cable clamps. They're pretty much out of sight and it works great. Depending on your house you could also run them through the walls/attic/etc. There's a lot of ways to make it work without going bachelor pad.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#107

Post by ClimaxGravely »

ryanmcbride wrote: post #34
iLoveOncall wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think it might make sense. I can't remember a single AA game that was great. Actually, I can't remember a single AA game other than the ones I remember because of how bad they were. I think AA in games has, for a long time, meant "We want to do a AAA but don't have the money or time" and this can only end in disaster.

Is Yakuza AA or AAA? Because every Yakuza game is great and I don't think they have that big of a budget.

I've worked on some titles very similar to Yakuza and I keep espousing the way they develop their titles. I don't know for sure because I haven't worked at the studio but it really seems like they've streamlined their development to keep costs down and allow them to develop quickly via asset reuse and resisting major engine upgrades across titles in favor of a slower, more focused pace.

Often in my experience in the west we tend to re-author assets, do major engine upgrades or re-implement gameplay systems across sequels when we could have iterated on existing systems and use the time we saved to work on new stuff.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#108

Post by danielbln »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #102
jerf wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immersive Sim + "I have to keep up with the latest AAA game standards for graphics" probably is doomed. We really need to give them permission to not have to be up to that graphics standard. Permission to not have to be fully voiced would be nice too. Right now they're in an ugly place where they're still awfully large for an indie or AA studio, but an AAA studio still largely won't make anything that doesn't drive t…

There is no doubt AI won't be used to fix the fully voiced issue. That is such a no-brainer. As to graphics, my favorite games of the past 5 years were average graphics at best. (Subnautica, Outer Wilds, Hollow Knight, Hades... Red Dead 2 ok not that one)

AI for voices is such a catch-22. On one hand, you don't want to open that box of pandora and/or alienate human VAs. OTOH, if the choice is between no VO, and AI VO, well, I'd be ok with AI VO, but it's a slippery slope for sure.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#109

Post by wlesieutre »

masklinn wrote: post #95
aaomidi wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deep rock galactic Dave the diver Spiritfairer Frostpunk Should i keep going?

Dave the diver is definitely not an "AA" game. It's so indie looking it was nominated for multiple indie awards (even if it's not an actual indie game). DRG is not AA either, according to its homepage GhostShip has 32 people 4 years after launching it . Same for Spiritfairer, it was built by a team of 16.

Wasn’t the case earlier in development since they didn’t have big financial backing, Ghost Ship only grew after DRG had sales

> Deep Rock Galactic aired a trailer at E3 2017, then the game had a huge bump after its Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview launch in February 2018. Its Early Access didn't skyrocket the game "insanely high" like titles such as Valheim, but Pedersen said it was solid enough to know they had a success. At that time there were only 12 employees, and everyone was contracted "because we didn't know if we'd have money the next month."

https://gamerant.com/deep-rock-galactic-interview-ghost-ship...

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#110

Post by jarsin »

bogwog wrote: post #88
mynameisvlad wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’ve already expressly said they’re shifting from a hardware-focused business to a software-focused one. Did you miss that and think they’re just bad at business? Hardware has always been a loss leader used to sell games, nothing more. If they can sell the games just as well on their “competitiors platforms” then why bother spending time and exorbitant amounts of money building your own hardware? Exiting the hardw…

That's not true. Hardware gives them the ability to create a monopoly on game publishing/distribution, which is why console games have always been so expensive. The platform holder can charge high fees to developers and demand high prices from consumers. That's nothing unique to the game industry. Microsoft has said they're trying to focus more on software, but that focus is on gamepass not games themselves. They wan…

360 + Gears of War was the best time in gaming.

Look what they have done to Gears as well. Nobody even knows or hears anything about it anymore.

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