141–150 of 233 posts
So... When does the government take action against Microsoft for lying about the Activision merger and how there wouldnt be layoffs?
https://www.polygon.com/24065269/ftc-microsoft-activision-de...
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> Does this make them bad at business? No, and nobody said as much either. It just means they get enough out of other sales (including an increase from hardware) that they have decided hardware is still worth it. Microsoft has decided otherwise. They’re both perfectly fine decisions. > I've actually worked at a high enough level in the games industry to know about the non-public dynamics, and that includes working wi…
> Then you should very well know how hardware has always been a loss leader intended to drive people to exclusives and first party services. Just like the number one console, the Switch? Sold at a loss? To drive people to play the exclusives? TBH I won't engage further in this line.
I highly doubt they have recouped the R&D costs of making the console and platform at $40-80 per unit. So, yes, at a loss. Looking at the BOM and calling it a day is the shallowest way to evaluate if something is sold at a gain or loss.
> To drive people to play the exclusives?
Nintendo? The major game studio that famously only releases their first party titles on their own platform? Yeah I'm pretty sure that's the reason their entire hardware lineup exists and has ever existed.
> TBH I won't engage further in this line.
Not that you've been engaging in anything but dismissals without substance in this entire post.
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Game development is in a really weird place. Insanely over-saturated but almost all AAA games are extremely derivative, stale, bland games with a coat of pretty graphics Indie games are awesome right now, but they don't have the budgets to produce AAA games. So there is a huge gap. Innovative indie games with cool, new gameplay concepts, but always simple or retro graphics, and AAA games with shiny graphics on the ot…
AAA basically just means nice graphics at this point. You can't dump more money into a piece of art to make it better, that's why all the innovation comes from indie games. Look at Balatro, a guy made a poker roguelike and became a millionaire overnight. I think if big game studios, rather than dumping their copious amounts of money into single, giant-scope games, dealt it out amongst a variety of smaller teams for s…
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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.
I suppose I would go by the budget. Maybe 5-10million+ IMO. It also kind of depends how they spend the money.
EDIT : After some further reflection, From personal experience I'd consider a AA game one where everyone on the dev team knows each other fairly well. AAA games get so large that you don't end up knowing everyone super well by the end of the project.
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Conversely, the recently released surprise hit Helldivers 2 is a very prominent AA game has sold millions of copies and seems well poised to win a bunch of game of the year awards (recently concluded PSN account linking controversy notwithstanding).
Sidebar: Helldivers II is not a genre I’d normally enjoy but I have absolutely fallen in love with the very rewarding gameplay loop and grind. I have never enjoyed spreading democracy more with my friends than dropping a perfectly targeted orbital strike on a bunch of unpatriotic bugs.
Lately my friend group has been playing on mid level difficulty to grind out common and rare samples, and there's nothing funnier than cracking a joke about something and then that person hitting you with a 500 kg bomb and making your body ragdoll across the map. There's just something about messing around in it and being goofy that feels good that doesn't in, say, Vermintide or Darktide.
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…
"In 2024 alone we have Starfield Shattered Space, Fallout 76 Skyline Valley, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, and The Elder Scrolls Online’s Golden Road. "
3/4 of those titles are old games that are live services, where it's a better investment and dev cost to pump engaged players than build new audiences. It's VERY hard to beat a 5% (even more for an MS-sized deposit) return on a savings account, so closing studios that made Good Games isn't about the games at all, it's just looking at the balance sheet. Everyone always knew they were creating on borrowed time, and now that time is unfortunately up.
The solution of this is to not let private companies dictate cultural production for a nation, but the US is piss poor at arts funding and all our billionaires want to squirrel away wealth overseas rather than building libraries, museums, or cultural production funds.
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In what regard has gamepass failed? I keep hearing nothing but excitement about it? Does it lose a lot of money? Similarly, how did they trash the Xbox brand? I've always been a PlayStation or Nintendo user so my view is quite tainted here.
From what I understand gamepass has heavily undercut actual game sales (why buy a game for $70 when it'll probably be on gamepass at some point, and most games are a month of play or so).
Argument is still valid, since I’ve not bought AAA games for more than two years now, only indies or AA, even if I already beat them with Game Pass.
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Just as with movies, it seems like we’re witnessing the death of mid-budget (AA) games.
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.
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Fortnite has had a single release and is a free to play game. Once again, if you're going to point out games that just come out with a new version to sell it again, you're failing to show accurate examples.
Bethesda is also notorious for taking forever to make Elder Scrolls games. Skyrim came out in 2011 and has not had a proper sequel since. First-person RPG also isn't exactly a glutted sub-genre. Neither of the examples fit the phenomenon they're talking about!
It's really only since then that game development times have skyrocketed as much as they have.
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Game development is in a really weird place. Insanely over-saturated but almost all AAA games are extremely derivative, stale, bland games with a coat of pretty graphics Indie games are awesome right now, but they don't have the budgets to produce AAA games. So there is a huge gap. Innovative indie games with cool, new gameplay concepts, but always simple or retro graphics, and AAA games with shiny graphics on the ot…
Insanely over-saturated but almost all AAA games are extremely derivative, stale, bland games with a coat of pretty graphics... People have been saying this for decades at this point. I'm not seeing it. Innovation is largely overrated. It can be a good thing, but the vast majority of games, whether AAA or indie, can't be truly innovative. And innovative doesn't translate directly to a game being enjoyable. Conversely…