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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

#441

Post by sbarre »

ehnto wrote: post #326
sbarre wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed the character writing a lot and the overall story arc was interesting. The quests could be challenging without being too grindy or obscure, but the moment-to-moment gameplay was... just ok? It felt even clunkier than Fallout 4 in terms of how an FPS plays.. The maps and environments looked good but were pretty generic in terms of layout and variety. I don't regret buying it (on sale), but I haven't picked u…

I don't like combat in RPGs anyway, but it did feel like less of a chore than combat in Fallout games. Maybe they just got the "grind/success" ratio closer to what I prefer.

I'm with you on that, but I still find the game forced enough combat on you (especially the end game) and it didn't feel good.. I felt like a lot of my deaths weren't due to my mistakes but to the gameplay being janky.

But of course I'd say that. ;-)

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

#442

Post by chillwaves »

tmpz22 wrote: post #340
mattmanser wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fallout 4 was a massive hit and they've got a new franchise about to come out (Starfield). Wolfenstein + Dishonored have consistently sold well. In May 2016, 5 years after Skyrim was released, it was valued at $2.5 billion, now it's being bought 4 years later for $7.5 billion. I appreciate some Bethesda fans have a weird agenda, but you are wrong. Also, Starfield has been written in an overhauled engine, so again, wr…

Fallout 76 was an unmitigated disaster and absolute embarrassment to the studio however [1]. [1]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kjyeCdd-dl8

That video is a year and a half old. I hear the game has improved since then, but I haven't tried it myself.

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

#443

Post by mywittyname »

shuntress wrote: post #292
gabereiser wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo! CoD, Quake, Doom, Civ, Madden, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, All of Nintendo... you can’t fault them for milking an IP though when fans vote with their wallets. I would love new stories, new hero archetypes, new consequences, in games and I think indie have done a decent job at showing it can be done. But even indie suffers from the “Hey! This worked! Let’s just keep doing this!” IP milkage. Game dev, like so…

To directly name some of games you seem to be implying are automatically bad; I'm personally very happy with Doom (2016), Doom Eternal, Breath of the Wild, and Mario Odyssey. I am glad that ID and Nintendo have been "milking" these IPs.

I think there's a difference between continuing an IP and milking one.

When the same IP gets passed to a dozen different studios who each create vastly different experiences, that's milking and I generally don't like it. The whole point of an IP is that you know what to expect, and having different studios working on the same IP is contrary to that goal.

Nintendo does not milk IPs, IMHO. They actually put a lot of though into their games and ensuring the the experience is top-notch. Compare Nintendo Zelda games to the few non-Nintendo variants: they've all been trash. Which is exactly why Nintendo rarely outsources games.

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

#444

Post by eropple »

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…

I don't much care for EGS, but Epic is paying small developers a lot for that exclusivity. In the current indie market, that chunk of change can be the difference between profitability and failure.

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

#445

Post by 13415 »

apatters wrote: post #94
francis_t_catte wrote: post #22

Soon we'll just have Microsoft, Epic, and a conglomeration of EA, Activision, and Ubisoft after Bobby Kotick forces them all to merge. Facebook will bungle up any chance they have of capturing the gaming market after writing a cryptic paragraph about their legal right to request blood samples from all Oculous users in the TOS. Valve will quietly exit software development altogether, and pivot to building custom vanit…

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…

Well, not everybody has the same tastes. I mostly don't like the aesthetics of indie games, especially not the "indie feel" or any kind of pixelated or animation-style graphics. I will not play anything that reeks of "design".

Instead, I prefer realistic-looking graphics, with moving trees and clouds. I've more often than not spent too much money on new AAA just to look at the graphics and barely play. Unfortunately, games with AAA-graphics with a good story and great original gameplay (no sequels!) seem to get rarer, and the disappearance of independent top-notch game studios could be a reason for that.

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

#446

Post by mywittyname »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #164
ekianjo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Rockstar ever gets acquired, this will be one of the most expensive deals ever. They routinely sell games in the dozens of millions of units.

GTA V, mainly thanks to their online offering, has been the 2nd best selling video game of all time, second only to Minecraft... which Microsoft bought in 2014 for $2.5 billion. Mind you, Minecraft's income comes from a lot of merchandise and spinoffs, whereas GTA is mainly from the game itself. I was curious; RDR 2, also a Rockstar game, is the #14 best selling game of all time apparently; I didn't know it did that…

I rarely buy new games at full price, but I bought RDR2 twice: first for the PS4, the on the PC.

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

#448

Post by likeclockwork »

paulpan wrote: post #433

Having just watched Netflix vs. the World documentary ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8407418/ ) last week, this acquisition seems to be inevitable as game streaming is taking off and will eventually become the defacto means of playing video games. Microsoft's endgame is to increase the subscribers to its GamePass subscription so akin to Netflix's insatiable appetite for video content, Microsoft's will be for video ga…

I don't see how both game streaming and high resolution/high refresh rate displays can both be the future. The bandwidth requirements will keep going up and high resolution particle effects can create terrible compression artifacts.

Local processing power is also not standing still in time, the capability a given price purchases is increasing year upon year. Do you imagine a future where people have limitless bandwidth, with low latency, and only use incapable thin clients?

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

#449

Post by cyberpunk »

ionwake wrote: post #431
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…

Is it possible to play dwarf fortress on mobile yet ?

Yes, see dfremote — iOS only though I think but works nicely with an iPad Pro and the pencil (provided you have a machine capable of running docker somewhere)

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

#450

Post by selykg »

selykg wrote: post #290
Waterluvian wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Todd has zero power to make that promise. In my opinion it’s irresponsible to make the claim.

Given Todd's history on, well, anything the past decade... why would anyone believe literally a word out of his mouth? As a Playstation gamer, anything Todd Howard related can stay on Xbox for all I care. What I will potentially miss are games like Wolfenstein and Doom.

And as proof of why you should never listen to Todd Howard.

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1308062702905044993...

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