commander
@commander@lemmy.world
- Comment on 1 week ago:
Live service on console was obvious on the way for every genre back on the 360/PS3 era with FIFA ultimate team and publishers also having that period of time when they were trying to kill used games with that single account multiplayer access code
Then it became super obvious because of PC from the super success of TF2 hats and eventually CSGO skins by like 2015. Trying to compete with WoW was an ocean of dead video game studios. Fortnite perfected live service on consoles and CoD adapted and went just as wild with it
Single player games, my hot take is Mass Effect, Uncharted, and Assassin’s Creed killed AAA single player narrative games by succeeding so well to making future games mediocre. Mass Effect had interesting alien species dynamics but never took them with much of any depth. They were Star Wars movies rather than the wild Star Wars EU. Uncharted was a hyper popular Hollywood blockbuster where the emotional highlight being the beginning of Uncharted 4 with Nate and Elena being a cute couple.
Assassin’s Creed stories kept going deeper and deeper into name dropping famous figures/mythology that it became parody. Historical clout chasing wrapped together in a nonsense overarching plot that should have had some satisfying ending back in 2012 but instead is effectively spin-offs the series
So Mass Effect hints at interesting politics but plays things safe and gives you none but Hollywood space opera in video games with solid animations and facial animations were fresh in the 360 era. Uncharted was even more extreme in that regards than Mass Effect where there was still novelty in Hollywood mimicry with even better graphics and even more scripted for explosive set pieces. Assassin’s Creed and eventually Far Cry and Watch Dogs are bottom feeders. Chase trends, name drop - shotgun approach for trailer fodder. They are sadly the standards of AAA single player narrative
Also live service single player games are competitive. Stories are just as shallow but frequent in release and graphics at a level good enough now. Talking like Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, Wuthering Waves
- Comment on PlayStation 6 Console And New PS6 Handheld ‘Canis’ Specs Leak, It’s Claimed - Insider Gaming 2 weeks ago:
They could probably get away with a PS6 that’s a PS5 Pro raster equivalent, improved ray tracing, and a modern AMD CPU and a bump in memory. Whatever can be sold for $500 in 2-3 years. Switch 2 is the baseline.
Microsoft can be twice as powerful, unless they had a multi year string of incredible exclusives, they’re not doing better than this gen and
regardless they don’t do exclusives anymore - Comment on Mastercard release a statement about game stores, payment processors and adult content 3 weeks ago:
I learned that. It was the whole chain to get to that point and how that organization even came to be and how they came to be and how it’s regulated that was a bit disgusting with how make shift it seemed to me. The whole stack all came off as a multi decade saga of stapling org on top of org until we came to the present of things mostly work but it’s a bit fragile with a mix of public and private regulators trying to hold things together and make old paper systems work with modern technology
- Comment on Nintendo Switch Console & Accessory Prices Are Going Up In The US 3 weeks ago:
I’m guessing they haven’t fully siloed the Canadian supply chain from the US one, it may not be worth it yet to fully silo them off onto separate shipping, packaging, and support channels
- Comment on Mastercard release a statement about game stores, payment processors and adult content 3 weeks ago:
I remember seeing a graphic that was about every layer of companies that are interacted with when you use a credit card. Must have been at least like 6 layers of companies each taking a fee from a company that took fees higher up the chain closer to the consumer
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to games@lemmy.world | 31 comments
- Comment on Outer Worlds 2 cut to $70 after backlash 3 weeks ago:
Microsoft is really bad at first impressions. Like that initial Halo Infinite preview and the early Avowed preview with the skeletons and weird/lacking shadows. Or being shocked that the public didn’t like Redfall and that it was comically buggy. Obsidian is perennially solid, but Microsoft is at least a brand anchor with how they can’t seem to ever have foresight for any PR issues with their decision making
- Comment on Ubisoft's annual report dictates that the consumers are the problem 3 weeks ago:
Ubisoft has been run by assholes for at least 20 years
- Comment on Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors 4 weeks ago:
This is becoming the norm. Don’t think there can be some new payment processor based off traditional finance and banking that can get around this. Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Square, SEPA, FedNow, etc will all rather block transactions to companies that deal in NSFW or whatever is considered dangerous content than try and be some neutral payment rail.
Any in terms of cryptocurrency, any stablecoin will end up subject to the same problems where the issued stablecoin is backed by a governments currency or bonds or even like corporate bonds which are regulated by countries and those are all clear ways to regulate what is appropriate for spending money on. Stablecoins have freeze and clawback mechanisms, at least the ones that are legally compliant. Really to me the only solution is for non-stablecoin/gold/etc backed cryptocurrencies to become popular for payments
- Comment on [deleted] 4 weeks ago:
Ya but they started the always online DRM for single player games back with AC2 and the lawsuits about the companies culture of sexual harassment/assault
- Comment on [deleted] 4 weeks ago:
Don’t buy Ubisoft games. They’re the epitome of trash culture in game publishing
- Mass Effect 5 is "still in pre-production" says director as BioWare shifts full focus to the sci-fi RPG amid dev reshuffles and reported layoffstech.yahoo.com ↗Submitted 4 weeks ago to games@lemmy.world | 35 comments
- Nintendo touts high employee retention rate after loss of Microsoft jobs rocks Xbox Game Studioswww.notebookcheck.net ↗Submitted 4 weeks ago to games@lemmy.world | 52 comments
- Comment on The Star Wars Outlaws flop - Guillemot blames waning interest in the franchise 4 weeks ago:
It’s been like 4-5 years since I’ve purchased a Ubisoft game. There’s too many games out there to be spending money on a trash publishers games. Along with how slp on the wrist it seemed with their workplace sexual harassment/bullying/assault, always remember that they pioneered always online DRM for single player games. They’ve been a trash company publicly for almost 20 years. Culturally probably longer
- Comment on Microsoft is closing down Xbox studio The Initiative, with Perfect Dark killed as well — joining Everwild and ZeniMax's new IP, and other unannounced projects 1 month ago:
Fables got to be far along enough to not get cancelled but my expectations are incredibly low. Nothing against Forza Horizon but giving a studio that has only ever made Forza Horizon games a AAA RPG reboot where the original game was known for it’s super endearing and fun writing along with a hodgepodge of promised god game mechanics in a third person RPG is a bad idea. Also using the Forza engine
So they need writers, they need game designers that do third person combat, level/creature/etc designers since racing simcades replicate real world stuff, I imagine them even needing a different voice acting director rather than whatever they do with Forza Horizon.
It’s pretty much a startup studio with a huge budget that has to upgrade the Forza engine to make content creation for quest/gameplay designers/non-programmers easy. Also studio heads have to learn how to manage the staff and content pipeline for a huge RPG game. Recipe for terrible growing pains. Should have never pushed almost all their studios towards Kinect and then live service. Maybe then Lionhead wouldn’t have atrophied and been shut down
- Comment on Microsoft’s Forza Motorsport developer hit hard by Xbox cuts 1 month ago:
Forza Motorsport coming out real mid was a huge surprise. It for so long was solidly competitive with Gran Turismo and then the last one just seems to have disappointed so many
- Comment on Nier creator Yoko Taro reveals the sad reality of modern AAA game development, “there’s less weird people making games” 2 months ago:
Dragon Age 1-3 all had their drawbacks but could always fall back on how beloved the lore was and how it was present. Dragon Age Veilguard has much of the lore the original creator laid out but presents the revelations in its game poorly and retcons lore from previous games in sterile ways. The original creator left after 3 and over the decade has dropped tidbits about the changing culture of the studio he left
- Submitted 2 months ago to games@lemmy.world | 3 comments
- Comment on As The Outer Worlds 2 hits $80, director says "we don't set the prices for our games" and wishes "everybody could play" Obsidian's new RPG 2 months ago:
I’ll play the game in like 4-5 years like how I played the first one years later for way cheaper. So cheap I couldn’t be disappointed with the writing and just enjoyed the solid but unremarkable game
- Submitted 2 months ago to games@lemmy.world | 11 comments
- Submitted 2 months ago to games@lemmy.world | 19 comments
- Comment on Inside the 'Dragon Age' Debacle That Gutted EA's BioWare Studio 2 months ago:
I don’t get EA/Bioware. Fantasy is consistently more popular than scifi. Inquisition was their best selling game. Yet DA was never treated like a heavyweight like Mass Effect. My expectations tanked when David Gaider left
- Comment on The Outer Worlds 2 Can't Be Anti-Capitalist When It's Charging Us $80 To Play It 2 months ago:
Play that years down the line. The first one was OK but I paid like $15 for it with the expansion. Obsidian hasn’t had a clear jump in quality since the MS purchase. Possibly even signs of writing regression with Avowed so can’t imagine much hype for this game
- Comment on Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 - Official Teaser 2 months ago:
Still on the Xbox One and PS4. Incredible longevity. Expect the same for the PS5 when the PS6 comes out
- Comment on Dave2D - Windows Was The Problem All Along (Lenovo Legion Go Windows 11 vs. SteamOS) 2 months ago:
Every laptop I’ve bought has come with Windows including gaming ones. Up to really powerful computers. Like having a 4080 in it or down to just integrated. I could be doing nothing and you’ll hear the fan spin up hard on Windows.
On hardware with just integrated graphics, Windows just sucks compared to Linux. Fan spins up but you’ll still get animation hitches as Windows background services are doing something. Switch to Linux and resource usage just matches up really well with what you know you’ve installed and set to run. Just whatever is popular: Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint, Pop_OS, etc compared to consumer Windows editions.
Plus it’s nice installing an OS and not having to go through pages of telemetry opt-outs, encouragement to buy O365, OneDrive, Copilot+, Gamepass, create online MS account, etc. Windows went from a relatively neutral marketplace, besides the bundled software, to a platform for marketing MS and other companies subscription services
Neutral base of fairly standardized open source Linux operating systems is going to show itself overtime as preferable as these controlled platforms get monetized harder. Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android are all in varying stages of being subscription and marketing data farms
- Comment on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — 10th Anniversary Trailer 2 months ago:
The controls I thought were really easy but I played on PC so I could swing the mouse around and I don’t need to looks at the keyboard to hit almost any key. Then I played on a console and then I understood the hate for Witcher 3 controls. I remember it feeling very heavy. Weird to control the camera and Geralt
- Comment on I'm a console gamer so, Why the hate on the Epic Games Store? 2 months ago:
I’m pretty sure Steam has been able to do that since launch, though I do remember the legendary loading bar that would progress then regress then progress and regress all with the same text message there so it wasn’t perfect in 2003. Roller coaster early on but by like 2007 it was pretty solid
I’m pretty sure EA Origin was able to do that day one or within a year of release. Origin was OK from what I remember just that it took stayed stagnant and I’m guessing onboarding games to the platform being a terrible process considering how sparse releases were on there
Steam is a mature platform. It doesn’t roll out new user facing features often. Yet somehow I think the gap has widened since 2018 vs EGS
- Comment on I'm a console gamer so, Why the hate on the Epic Games Store? 2 months ago:
It’s been I think about 7 years and it’s not feature competitive for end users with 2011 Steam even though they definitely make more money than 2004-2011 Valve and by 2018 had 14 years of history to look at and feature target based off what competition offered
The CEO was regularly on Twitter complaining about Windows but refused to help grow Linux adoption. Valve has been doing that since like 2012. He constantly talks about standing with small developers but then in the Apple court case admits they would have been quiet if Apple gave them a special revenue split deal. He complains about Steam and mobile store cuts but doesn’t complain about consoles having the same.
Exclusive deals in lieu of providing a better experience for the end user. Talked up so much about being superior because they’re developer focused; didn’t have self publishing tools until the end of 2023 - 5 years after EGS launched. It’s been 7 years. They haven’t made PC gaming any better. They made it worse for a time when they were throwing cash at exclusives rather than store platform feature development
Recent example of how bad they are with pushing minimal viable products. EGS mobile store was launched the beginning of this year with no library view. You just scroll up and down, side to side looking for games you own mixed among games you don’t own. Their concept of minimal viable product is insanely mediocre for how vocal the CEO is and how much money they make and their turnaround time on improving these stores is awful.
There are numerous Android storefronts that don’t have Unreal Engine and Fortnite money keeping the companies funded and somehow Epic comes out the gate mediocre again where it’s marketing is free games but it’s mobile games so what’s available is way less headline worthy. They learned nothing from 2018 about the difference between what they consider a minimal viable product and what the market would consider a market competitive minimal viable product
Years ago Epic put out a kanban board to display a public feature development tracker to assure people they were working on improving the store. They abandoned that quick and I’m pretty sure what few they had on that, most still haven’t been implemented
Their support for handheld is at the level of GOG which barely markets itself and is pretty low revenue as it rarely gets any games that aren’t years old. Whether Windows or Linux, Epic for all their billions haven’t created a gamepad/TV centric interface
The CEO is a regular blowhard virtue signalling about liberty/freedom on Twitter but can’t be bothered to try and pioneer anything for users as a storefront. Since 2018 EGS has been so stagnant while Valve has been expanding Steam as a platform, that EGS is less relevant to me today than when they were throwing out major free games every month. I have no faith in the platform to integrate WINE/Proton, put together a TV/gamepad interface, do something like Steam curators, comparable user review system, crowd sourced game tags - a lot of useless stuff makes it in those but I find them regularly useful at a glance as it’s usually pretty obvious which are probably jokes and which are probably legit
- Comment on Microsoft's Xbox Handheld: Switch-Like Dock and Multi-Platform Support 3 months ago:
I never get the mind blowness some people get about a hypothetical future Xbox branded handheld that could runs all these stores that can play PlayStation games. It’s a PC. You can play PlayStation games on Windows devices for years now. It’s not a gotcha big brain strategic masterpiece on Microsofts part. Pay Valve to play PlayStation games. Current Xbox gamers in the future pay Valve to play 3rd party games rather than Microsoft
- Comment on Players Have Too Many Options to Spend $80 on a Video Game 3 months ago:
Not buying it. GTAV was the least played for me in the series besides the first 2 games. I thought it’s story was a major downgrade compared to Vice City through GTAIV. I feel like GTAV was a pullback from any bit of endearing human spirit to leaning heavily into wacky self-aware sarcasm. Not that the series wasn’t that. Just that 5 to me was an edgy non-clever series parody. It’s not that different than Far Cry. Empty commentary. Just mocking everything. Felt more affection in the 3 series and 4
Regardless since GTAIV, we’ve had a gluttony of open world games. Even the battle royale games I think fill in a niche for social multiplayer that’s wacky and real world pop culture referential. GTAVI and it’s RP community support I think will be what sends it past or below GTAV success. High sales expectations but I’m more tepid than most