What was the last good game Bethesda made? I think they burned out BioWare style.
Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B
791–798 of 798 posts
Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B
#792The year is 2040. Gigaconglomerates Tencent, Activision Blizzard Ubisoft (ABU), Microsoft and Apple gatekeep the entire gaming industry. Rebel guerilla groups of small publishers and indie developers rise up to take control of their encampments.
I think you severely underestimate the piles of money Nintendo is sitting on if you don't think they'll make it to 2040. Sony is also big enough, diverse enough, and well-established enough that I doubt they would have trouble weathering one or two bad console generations back-to-back. And let's not forget 2K, 505 Games, Chucklefish, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Deep Silver, Devolver Digital, EA, Epic Games, Focus Home, Gea…
Totally agree. I mean, it was a joke and wasn't really evaluating any company, but yeah, agreed.
Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B
#793Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Initially (throughout XP and maybe some of Vista) OpenGL support on Windows was done by a OpenGL Initially (Windows 95), OpenGL support was provided directly by the OS. Starting with Windows 98, Microsoft stopped updating the OGL version of their reference driver, so users were stuck with OGL 1.1 unless the graphics card driver shipped with a custom OpenGL implementation. So whenever an application uses an OGL vers…
That hasn't been the case, then, because I clearly remember OpenGL being translates to DirectX in XP/Vista days. Whether it was because anything >1.1 called that up or because the driver vendors chose translation over native, I don't know. Original link seems to be dead but Slashdot references Vista layering OpenGL on top of Direct3D: https://slashdot.org/story/05/08/06/177251/windows-vista-may...
That comment references something else entirely - namely the Aero rendering system of the OS. This didn't affect applications that didn't use the Aero glass scheme (it was an option during window creation), however, or apps running in full-screen mode.
The Aero glass scheme was hardware accelerated and only worked with Direct3D, thus any OGL context created for a window using this renderer would have to run via Direct3D.
This is a very special case and as noted earlier, easily circumvented by simply not using this feature in your app.
Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B
#794This just further confirms that my energy and money is going to the indie space. The level of enjoyment I get out of Factorio, Cuphead, Cogmind, Crusader Kings III, Curious Expedition 2, EXA Punks, Elite Dangerous, Kenshi, etc is so much greater than any AAA title I've touched in the past 5 years, yet these games are cheaper and most can run on a potato. I want to play games, not interactive movies.
> Crusader Kings III
Excellent game that is actually on GamePass right now. Microsoft has actually been really great to smaller/indie games with GamePass.
Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B
#795Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure where this came from. Are you saying that Microsoft is opposed to modding?
You can't mod anything that's on gamepads due to the encrypted filestorage it uses. At least that was the case when I checked last year.
We have mods for Skyrim even on consoles. They can be modded on gamepass just fine if the developer decides to support it.
Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B
#796Carmack on the acquisition: > Great! I think Microsoft has been a good parent company for gaming IPs, and they don’t have a grudge against me, so maybe I will be able to re engage with some of my old titles. https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1308069857913720832...
Carmack left Zenimax because they wanted him to work on sequels instead of VR. They only started caring about VR once the $2B Oculus acquisition was dangled in their faces, and then scrambled to find a way to get a slice that they didn't earn. I didn't buy DOOM because I didn't support Zenimax's cynical lawsuit/cash grab. Maybe now I'll get DOOM after the Microsoft acquisition closes.
Is there a source for this? Because I always thought that it was the other way around - Carmack was rather bored, sold the company and moved somewhere else.
Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B
#797Earlier quoted context omitted.
Carmack left Zenimax because they wanted him to work on sequels instead of VR. They only started caring about VR once the $2B Oculus acquisition was dangled in their faces, and then scrambled to find a way to get a slice that they didn't earn. I didn't buy DOOM because I didn't support Zenimax's cynical lawsuit/cash grab. Maybe now I'll get DOOM after the Microsoft acquisition closes.
Is there a source for this? Because I always thought that it was the other way around - Carmack was rather bored, sold the company and moved somewhere else.
He sold the company in 2009, long before Oculus existed. He intended to continue working there [1] and he did for several years. AFAIK he didn't start dabbling in VR until 2012 and didn't leave id until 2013, after attempting to work on VR stuff there for a while which was seemingly blocked, e.g. DOOM 3 BFG VR support which he promised but Zenimax never released.
[1] https://www.engadget.com/2009-06-24-bethesda-parent-company-...
Re: Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B
#798Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a source for this? Because I always thought that it was the other way around - Carmack was rather bored, sold the company and moved somewhere else.
He sold the company in 2009, long before Oculus existed. He intended to continue working there [1] and he did for several years. AFAIK he didn't start dabbling in VR until 2012 and didn't leave id until 2013, after attempting to work on VR stuff there for a while which was seemingly blocked, e.g. DOOM 3 BFG VR support which he promised but Zenimax never released. [1] https://www.engadget.com/2009-06-24-bethesda-paren…
Confirmation from the man himself: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1312272675222491136...