Katana314
@Katana314@lemmy.world
- Comment on Romero Games reportedly met with Microsoft just a day before the publisher pulled funding for the studio, and there was 'no mention' of the decision that put over 100 people out of work 19 hours ago:
I feel a bit of shame that back in the Win7, Xbox Series S era of Microsoft I was sort of cheering them on as an underdog in several markets.
But it does seem like every large company is driving these zero sum efforts now. Anyone that high up is chomping for workforce reduction.
If larger-scale changes don’t prove possible, I still want Elizabeth Warren’s Accountable Capitalism act as a way for majority workforce in a company to declare “No, this way is insane, fire whoever suggested it” earlier rather than later.
- Comment on Made Ya Look... 19 hours ago:
It frustrates me that the independent, “keep to myself and don’t trust the government” personalities love gas/oil and not solar panels/batteries. Can’t remember a time we invented a war in the Middle East to steal their sunlight.
- Comment on Milking dust 1 day ago:
Both this and Five Nights at Freddy’s have an interesting problem, where they’re based around an entertainment franchise that goes wrong - but the franchise itself necessitates repeated attempts and failure.
- Comment on For people who want to play their favorite games but are unable to, what are you currently doing? 2 days ago:
- Comment on Microsoft has never been good at running game studios, which is a problem when it owns them all 2 days ago:
“I’m sick of investing in video games. They’re always so unreliable.”
“You literally only ever invested in two companies.” - Comment on Subnautica's Original Creators Have Been Removed From Unknown Worlds "Effective Immediately", As Krafton Makes Concerning Leadership Changes 5 days ago:
Does this mean in 6 years we’ll get “BelowTheWatermica Dos” by a new studio, and it will be a far better spiritual sequel?
It’s happened only a few times when a publisher cans the developers.
- 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 5 days ago:
Anytime I see super-smooth transition animations in a demo, or even just gameplay mechanics that seem to work out way too conveniently, it tells me it’s an animated “pre-viz” demo of the game they want to make. That’s kind of the impression I got from Perfect Dark.
- Comment on Randy Pitchford asks fans if they'd swallow future Borderlands exclusivity deals, almost 10,000 people say just put your damn games on Steam 5 days ago:
Any chance he’s putting the question on social media to convince other stakeholders above him?
It’s possible he was in a board meeting when some novice shareholder suggested “What if you take an exclusivity deal”? And he just didn’t have clear evidence on hand of that being vastly unpopular. Obviously that could be me being overgenerous to him.
- Comment on Square Enix acknowledges Expedition 33 success as inspiration for next Final Fantasy as turn-based is still beloved by gamers 1 week ago:
When all the decisions have to come rapid-pace, I don’t feel like I’m doing anything notable. It feels like mashing out light or strong attacks and maybe some block/dodges.
I’ll admit that there have been some action JRPGs where I just didn’t understand how the mechanics worked together, even after some explanations, because I had to play it out so quickly in combat. Those games ended up having low difficulty so that people that “weren’t getting it” could still see the story.
I’m still okay at Soulslike games where there’s not quite as many meters and illogical systems. And of course I’m okay with turn-based games having those weird systems because I can process things slowly until I get it, and am taking my turns at full speed.
- Comment on no way right 2 weeks ago:
It’s really sad - back on 9/11, I thought “That’s horrible! What kind of evil country could hate us so much they’d want to attack our civilians!?”
Now, if another 9/11 happens, I may just shrug and think “…Yeah…we’re America. We deserve it.”
- Comment on Do Mannequins scare you? I am making a horror game inspired by Fatal Frame in FPS where your only weapon is a Polaroid Pictures! 2 weeks ago:
Has the potential to be very cool! What might be sad is that many horror games now evoke the trope of “They move when you’re not looking”. Game development takes a long time, so I can guess this was not an obvious trend when you started on it. But there should still be ways to differentiate your work.
- Comment on Day 338 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 2 weeks ago:
Every screenshot posted of this game is peak content.
- Comment on Stellar Blade on PC Hit 1 Million Sales 19 Times Faster Than on PlayStation 5 2 weeks ago:
I couldn’t stand Near A Tomato but have tons of hours in SB. I grant it has nothing amazing in terms of story, but it has enough intricacies of combat to keep it fun, even if none of those mechanics were invented here.
Nier seemed to operate off a single attack button a lot of time, and working off RPG mechanics gave so many opportunities for level disparity that didn’t serve the game at all.
- Comment on Borderlands 4 Price Has Been Confirmed 2 weeks ago:
I think the only thing that might get me to go over the $60 line is if a publisher takes a chance on a franchise/concept I’d like to see more of, which these days is rare.
- Comment on Studio Camelia shuts down a year after raising €300,000 on Kickstarter to fund JRPG (Alzara Radiant Echoes) 2 weeks ago:
While it is fraud, it’s murky waters when you realize this is what every Kickstarter does. Gamers don’t easily fathom the full sum of what it costs to pay qualified artists for a full development cycle. Kickstarters have only existed to prove to investors that there’s monetary interest in a concept.
- Comment on ICE Protests Pop Up on Roblox as Kids Organize Virtual Demonstrations: 'FRICK ICE' 2 weeks ago:
It is my fervent hope that in a decade or less, the next Wolfenstein-style game is about killing ICE agents.
- Comment on BattleBit - Operation Overhaul: Teaser Trailer 3 weeks ago:
Downvoted for censoring “Gamers”. Go back to TikTok.
- Comment on MindsEye Becomes 2025’s Worst-Rated Game As Reviews Creep In 3 weeks ago:
I know “worst” is an adjective that triggers a lot of content farms, but I still feel bad about these situations. Even the worst games, when they manage to be completed, are mountains of effort from the people involved; and as I understand it this was coming from one of IOI’s first publishing efforts.
- Comment on BattleBit - Operation Overhaul: Teaser Trailer 3 weeks ago:
This happened for me with Back 4 Blood.
Turtle Rock said “Okay, we’re done developing content. We’ll move on to new things now.” And people took that to mean it was a failed, dead, and worthless game. Whereas the active state where they left it was pretty solid, still runs, and I have a lot of fun with it. It just wasn’t built to be endlessly live-service.
- Comment on Xbox Game Pass might be getting a price hike 3 weeks ago:
I feel like, though it doesn’t come up much, we should conceptually separate “owning the game” from “having a physical edition”. Some games give you a disc, but barely offer ownership (remember CD keys?) while other games are only sold digitally, but are ultra-permissive with what you do with them.
I get the sense many indie companies would like to give people as much control as possible, but also can’t afford printing box sets.
- Comment on A game you "didn't know it was bad 'til people told you so"? 3 weeks ago:
King’s Quest VIII: Mask of Eternity. Even as a kid, I felt like it was a very strange gore-and-action focus shift for the King’s Quest series. Only as an adult did I hear the story of executive meddling that lead to the complete tone and gameplay shift.
- Comment on Xbox Game Pass might be getting a price hike 3 weeks ago:
The video game market is extremely hard to “corner”. It can happen for professional software like document processing, image editing, etc, but far too many startups are interested in making games, and there’s multiple digital stores to sell them. Minecraft and Factorio even sold off their own websites. Clair Obscur recently outsold a lot of big publisher efforts, and definitely didn’t need Game Pass’s visibility.
They can corner one particular audience like Call of Duty, but can only push so many expectations on them before those gamers consider other games. They tried it with Fallout, complete with subscription, and it was massively unpopular.
- Comment on Xbox Game Pass might be getting a price hike 3 weeks ago:
I still haven’t seen the “no other option” scenario as so many claim. You could say $80 price tags do that, but if all prices are going up, that doesn’t track so much.
They also discount games if you buy them while you have game pass. So there’s some encouragement to try a game, find you want to keep it, and pay for a permanent copy should it be removed from GP (or the player decides to stop the GP subscription).
Still, I’m done with them because they’re done with talented studios, and are active participants in the Palestinian genocide.
- Comment on Xbox Game Pass might be getting a price hike 3 weeks ago:
I mean, I enjoy PS+, it’s just a matter of whether you’re okay playing a bunch of games on a known rental basis for the price point.
I enjoyed playing Texas Chainsaw while it was on there. Now the game’s dead. To me, not much lost as I move on to other games (and I do buy games too)
- Comment on Stellar Blade PC launch Hits 99K+ Concurrent players, surpassing every other PlayStation-published single-player game on Steam 3 weeks ago:
One bit that’s nice about being a gooner game is, there’s enough outfit options you can just pick something “cute” and tasteful, and then just play the game. So while many people are ogling, people that are not as interested can just play the game.
- Comment on Blue Prince - Have you played it? How blown is your mind? 3 weeks ago:
I abandoned it.
I found some cool stuff. I even coincidentally solved a puzzle involving an ice box on my first go. But it was taking waaaaayyyy too long to find anything interesting, and I had multiple runs where it felt like there was no chance to build anything other than a straight path of rooms leading to a dead end, either from lack of doors, or lack of keys.
I actually like the dice roll of getting different encounters and adapting to what comes up; but only when the goal is generally to do well, eg dealing lots of damage or exploring new directions. But often there’s very particular objectives in BP and the UI doesn’t do a lot to help you track them.
- Comment on Sea of Thieves Season 17 Announce Trailer 4 weeks ago:
Would be great if the matchmaking world could set some criteria restrictions.
PlayStation controllers have a mic built in; make an expectation people will use it, and speak English. If people matchmake games, and then leave those games 45 seconds in, penalize them and prevent them from joining new ones.
I know those things are idealistic, but I also think with a very dedicated effort an online network could create that space.
- Comment on Atomic Heart 2 Announced At Summer Game Fest 4 weeks ago:
I don’t even care about propagandist views. I’m just like “Hey devs, has your government stopped invading a sovereign country? No? Okay, no buy.”
- Comment on Deathloop is free to claim on Epic Games 4 weeks ago:
Don’t worry, the controls on PC are just as unbearable. It’s that style of mouse movement that would be fine in an RPG but is absolutely terrible with an FPS.
- Comment on The first weekly What Are You Playing? thread! 4 weeks ago:
Oh look, another day where I barely ever even got rooms that had more than one door, and now that my winding path has hit a dead end all my resources are useless. Next day I guess.