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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

#201

Post by masklinn »

ClimaxGravely wrote: post #198
masklinn wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suppose I would go by the budget. Maybe 5-10million+ IMO. Which is not really useful, because we usually don't have budgets. Team size x development time might be an approximation for it, but if you assume an average salary of 80k and a development time of 30 months, by your reckoning AA is a team of 50... which is basically the low end of what's normally considered an AA team size. > From personal experience I'd…

> Which is not really useful, because we usually don't have budgets. The majority of the AAA/AA projects I've worked on have budgets. I'm struggling to think of a project that didn't have a budget. > Team Meat is just two people, four if you include the producer and the composer, I would very much assume they knew each other fairly well, but there's no meaningful interpretation of AA where Super Meat Boy is an AA gam…

> The majority of the AAA/AA projects I've worked on have budgets. I'm struggling to think of a project that didn't have a budget.

We don't have budgets, as in the people not involved in the project don't have any access to the projects so have no way to "rate" on that metric.

> Of course you would expect a small indie team of 2-4 to know each other. I'm saying that once you hit AAA size teams that no longer becomes feasible.

How is that relevant? This here discussion is about the lower limit of AA, not the higher one.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#202

Post by iLoveOncall »

jicea wrote: post #40
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.

Housemarque hadn't released any AAA games before launching Returnal on PS5, which is, in my opinion, still one of the best games on this platform. Smaller studios can innovate on gameplay and stories before creating a hit. Another example is FromSoftware. They kept iterating on their games going from KingFields to Demon Souls, Dark Souls, etc...You can't have Elden Ring without all this earned experience.

> Housemarque hadn't released any AAA games before launching Returnal on PS5, which is, in my opinion, still one of the best games on this platform. Smaller studios can innovate on gameplay and stories before creating a hit.

Yeah I never said the contrary. Actually you see this quite commonly with small unknown studios that release stuff like educative or mobile games and suddenly are handed a big project.

> Another example is FromSoftware.

Please, they've been releasing AAA since Demon Souls. They're definitely not AA games.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#203

Post by supermatt »

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…

> Hi-Fi Rush was a fantastic game,

Its part of this months "choice" offering on humblebundle.com

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#204

Post by faet »

wredue wrote: post #161
hbn wrote: post #103

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 th…

How on earth is MS the “least bad” in the wake of this massive anti-competitive practice of just buying up studios?

Gamepass is pretty generous. Gamers see MS buy a studio and add their catalog to gamepass. PC gamers appreciate that Xbox games are also usually on PC.

Nintendo sends a ton of C&D letters to smaller developers, and are pretty anti-emulation. Games never go on sale. Remakes are expensive ($60 for Super Mario RPG for example).

Sony just had the whole "You need a PSN account to play a PC game" thing. But also, you can't create a PSN account in some countries, so sorry you can't play the PC game you bought anymore. They ended up walking it back though. You also need to pay to play online, which is a thing on xbox as well. But I think that's usually drowned out by the "PC Gamers" who don't need to pay for something like that.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#205

Post by AlwaysRock »

chucke1992 wrote: post #182
AlwaysRock wrote: post #91

So... When does the government take action against Microsoft for lying about the Activision merger and how there wouldnt be layoffs?

Lying for what? They did not promise not to close studios or laying off people. Governments should start looking at their own layoffs first too.

Part of the reason the merger was allowed was because they promised it would not result in layoffs for either company. They have now done multiple rounds of layoffs. They lied.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#207

Post by ang_cire »

masklinn wrote: post #100
ang_cire wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, people use indie to mean small, rather than it's actual meaning of "independent of a publisher", and it's one of those things that I've nearly given up on fighting. It's even more sad because the only reason that change happened was big publishers wanting in on the success of indie games as a label and concept, but by definition being excluded, so they pushed their own definition, and people gobbled up their c…

> Sadly, people use indie to mean small, rather than it's actual meaning of "independent of a publisher" That is way too imprecise a description for it to possibly be considered correct. Indie is about financial and creative independence aka the publisher does not drive the game. Many indies still go through publishers because they don't have the means or knowledge to handle distribution. This was even more so back w…

"Independent of a publisher" is less precise than, "independent ideas and creative freedom"?

Mine is literally a binary, factual assessment, that is easily verifiable: did they use a publisher?

Yours is a standard that the public has no way to verify, and is regularly is lied about by devs and publishers. Every publisher says they let their studios have full creative control. No one says, "yeah, we interfere in design decisions all the time".

> Many indies still go through publishers because they don't have the means or knowledge to handle distribution.

No, indies didn't go through publishers, small studios do.

What you are describing is just indie studios signing on with publishers, becoming dependent* on them for some aspect of distribution. Literally ditching their indie status.

Why do you think *any* size developer that uses a publisher does so? To gain the advantages of their greater resources.

As another commenter pointed out, this term doesn't originate in video games, it comes from musicians who do not sign on with a record label.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#208

Post by laylower »

etempleton wrote: post #127
lupusreal wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Microsoft plans to bring a lot of new people into a Bethesda game, I hope they invest in new engine tech and QA. Old Bethesda fans know what to expect by now, but newcomers with any modern game experience are going to be in for a rude surprise if the next Fallout game ships with typical Bethesda quality. They've had this problem with their last several releases too, but I think the TV show will make it a lot worse…

Starfield was much better than past Bethesda releases, but I agree.

No it was not. It was bland, linear, empty and it felt like an asset flip of fallout 4.

At least fallout 3 and NV had some great RPG elements.

Fallout 4 and Starfield were not great.

The graphics engine was dated 10 years ago, it's now comically underwhelming.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#209

Post by everforward »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #199
everforward wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t AAA vs AA about the funding of the project, and AA vs indie is about the publisher? I don’t care for scope as part of this because scope is so heavily influenced by the type of game. Eg Call of Duty is the poster child for AAA games and has a pretty unimpressive scope compared to virtually any RPG. Even indie RPGs tend to have a broader scope; CoD has basically nothing outside of combat mechanics. Then there’s…

I specifically said scope of the "project" instead of the "game". You're right that CoD is simple, but it's still a massive project where most areas (graphics, networking, game engine, etc.) are infinitely more developed than a game like Stardew Valley which is a much broader experience _as a player_.

Star Citizen must be AAAA then with all that feature creep!

Jokes aside, it still feels very subjective to me. Eg I wouldn’t point to CoD as a shining example for any of that. Their in-game launcher sucks, the voice chat is 2003 cell phone quality, the graphics are nice but not groundbreaking, and the stability of the game/servers is worse than most of the indie games I play even after installing mods.

CS:GO has better voice, better stability, and now you can shoot holes through the smoke from grenades. Servers are also 128Hz, where CoD just went from 20Hz to 60Hz (just in time to be out of date again).

COD is the poster child of scope creep to me. It has half-assed support for just about everything under the sun. I wouldn’t really call any part of it “developed”, though.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#210

Post by troupo »

tym0 wrote: post #206
troupo wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't HDMI/DisplayPort over Wifi

But you can use Moonlight which works very well.

Honestly, first time I hear about it.

Out of all devices connected to my TV it looks like it will only play through Apple TV. Thanks for the tip! There are some games I'd like to try

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