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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

#71

Post by jerf »

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 to the limit of modern graphics.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#72

Post by danielbln »

sharkweek wrote: post #55
m12k wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same here, third person coop extraction shooter? Bleh, not my cup of tea. Helldivers 2 though? 70+ hours and counting, it's just so much damn fun, with friend or with randoms. It really is the sum of it parts, and every match is different in its own ways. An amazing game, is what it is.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#73

Post by Sakos »

drrlvn wrote: post #22
HDThoreaun wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theyve released 5 bad games since prey

Only one, Redfall. They're only closing Arkane Austin, not Arkane Lyon. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkane_Studios#Games_developed

This seems bizarre to me. They're closing the one that made Prey 2017. Is it because labor is cheaper in France vs in Austin, USA? Or maybe because everybody who was involved with making Prey left during the shitshow that was Redfall? Or a combination maybe? I can't imagine giving Harvey Smith the axe, though I guess he'll be one of the handful who'll be shuffled off to work on something else inside Bethesda.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#74

Post by guipsp »

fidotron wrote: post #68
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…

I've actually worked at a high enough level in the games industry to know about the non-public dynamics, and that includes working with some of the people involved in this story. > 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? By…

Both Sony and Nintendo have expanded outside their traditional exclusive hardware. I don't think the parent is saying that doing hardware is useless, but rather that the writing is on the wall to some extent for pure console exclusivity.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#75

Post by mynameisvlad »

fidotron wrote: post #68
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…

I've actually worked at a high enough level in the games industry to know about the non-public dynamics, and that includes working with some of the people involved in this story. > 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? By…

> 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 with some of the people involved in this story.

Then you should very well know how hardware has always been a loss leader intended to drive people to exclusives and first party services. It shouldn’t be a surprise that once a company finds just as successful ways of driving the same engagement, they no longer need hardware.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#76

Post by highwaylights »

sharkweek wrote: post #55
m12k wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Remember: If an existing inhabitant attempts diplomacy we mustn't believe their lies.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#77

Post by utensil4778 »

gizmo385 wrote: post #64
utensil4778 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers have been signaling for quite some time that they're perfectly content buying Skyrim and Counterstrike every six months forever. Why even bother producing anything at all when you can just put a fresh coat of lipstick on the same pig and sell it all over again?

I get the point you’re trying to make, but Counterstrike is a free to play game. You might be thinking of Call of Duty?

Probably. I'm so thoroughly disinterested in this class of games that I can't be bothered to remember the difference.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#78

Post by mattgreenrocks »

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…

The current tech meta seems to be coalescing around this notion of "even high-performance isn't enough to spare you from layoffs, be afraid!" It wasn't that high-performance always guaranteed your job would continue, but at least there'd be the idea that you'd get moved to a new team if you were a great performer.

To me, that just reinforces the notion that these layoffs are mostly about sending a message to workers and Wall St more than anything else.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#79

Post by ErneX »

ajmurmann wrote: post #14
fidotron wrote: post #9

What is extraordinary about the Microsoft games unit and Xbox is how immune their senior staff are to the repercussions of their bad decisions. They're certainly not taking responsibility for the failed gamepass experiment, trashing the Xbox brand, or the acquisitions they now regret since successfully closing Activision. Failing upwards has never been so conspicuously obvious as it is in modern corporate America tha…

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.

Xbox was at their prime on the 360 era, they sold almost as many consoles as Sony did PS3. Ever since then they are selling half of PlayStation and their current consoles are tracking behind the previous generation in sales launch-aligned. Even with GamePass which is undeniably great value for gamers.

Seems they are now seriously considering becoming a third party publisher and release all their games or at least most on PlayStation and Switch, which honestly makes sense considering the amount of new development studios they acquired that used to release their games for every platform available, there are not enough Xbox consoles with paying customer to sustain all those studios I think.

Re: Microsoft closes several large Bethesda affiliated game studios

#80

Post by philipov »

sharkweek wrote: post #55
m12k wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me to refund that game, since I can't run it on geforce now, and it has denuvo so I won't install it on my own computer.
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