ALLTheDinos

@bigsocrates: I don't disagree with your core argument, but there has definitely been a noticeable shift the last several years in how companies flex their "greed is good" muscle. Also, I definitely qualified my statement about why we tolerate corporations with "in theory" because I personally think they actually exist just to exploit labor and make a select rich few richer and fewer in number. If this is incorrect, they have a weird way of disputing it.

Defector had an article this week (Monday maybe?) about why ESPN and sports media in general has been cramming sports gambling into every pore of their coverage. Their argument was that ESPN+, their streaming service, was largely unchanged for a long time and making steady profits in an era of most streaming platforms being unable to do just that. But now it needs to grow forever, and the only way to do that was cram odds or betting app partnerships into it. And of course, that might provide a quick jolt, but is it going to move the needle at all in another quarter or two?

It's really tough not to put the vast majority of blame for the current entertainment landscape on investor thirst for infinite profit. I don't know enough about finance to sound remotely intelligent about it, but it all feels like it more closely mirrors speculation than growing assets. For their part, company executives seem to so whatever they can to kowtow to these fickle requests, which doesn't feel like leadership so much as supreme cowardice.

The reason we put up with large corporations is that, in theory, they can provide products and services more efficiently, of higher quality, and with more security for the people that make them. Most companies don't appear to be hitting any of the three of those anymore, and it doesn't seem to bother the companies enough to change. Like you said, the mid-range games don't make a noticeable splash (even when successful) for the decision-makers. This isn't unique to the biggest publishers, but when Xbox and Sony release critically acclaimed games that sell reasonably well (despite whatever insane expectations they might have), then lay off the people who made it, it's pretty much impossible to conclude that those organizations are not fundamentally broken.

Thanks for starting this thread! I haven't had time to crack into the early access version yet, but I'm probably most curious about the weapons. I definitely used the bow as a crutch in the first game, so it's interesting to hear that it feels underpowered now. The two weapons during the tech test felt like they had more ranged power than Zagreus' weapons, so maybe the power of the bow has just been spread out more this time.

RE: gold not displaying in a shop - that's very weird because there were no issues with that in my tech test experience. I suspect they'll fix that in their first patch, whenever that may be.

@thepanzini: @peezmachine: The beginning of my next post (as well as the official poll and results posts) are going to declare the Real Hottest Mess to be the corporate greed that is absolutely destroying this industry, manifested in the shocking and numbing amount of layoffs and studio closures. I have a special vitriol for Microsoft on that front this year for sure. Then I'll make a fart noise and mock Randy Pitchford or something, I don't know.

This stupid industry and even stupider times, man.

If anything pushes me out of this hobby, it will be the absolutely psychotic ways that business treats the people who make games. The concerns of investors and the growth of a huge corporation matter less than nothing to me. Fuck all these fucking people.

@bigsocrates: To clarify, I wasn't comparing it to gamergate, I was saying that I'm probably oversensitive to this situation because bad faith actors jump in at the drop of a hat thanks to it. I hadn't had my coffee yet, so I'm assuming I expressed my thought poorly.

For the reaction, I've heard there were people hoping "Japan gets nuked again" when Sony was still requiring the login. I didn't dig into negative comments because I value a small portion of my sanity, but I would bet it wasn't the only sentiment that went well beyond what should be considered to say to another person. That's what I based my second paragraph on, and really it's not a reason to lump the dev in with those worst people so much as a reason to sideeye their response to it.

As for player count, check again in a few months. The game's hallmark has been its momentum, and its incredible word of mouth was lengthening that tail. One incident won't sink a game, and certainly not overnight, but take some of that shine off and it could harm the game's growth / sustainability. The fact that it ended up being for absolutely nothing is what makes me shake my head.

For a company that at one point was committed to creating a dozen live service games, Sony sure doesn't seem to have the ability to manage a single successful one. The absolutely most generous read is that they failed to communicate the return of this requirement to the player base, and failure to communicate to a LSG community is often a kiss of death. Ultimately, nothing is changing from a week ago, but they managed to lose players and tarnish the game's reputation through their actions.

As a small aside, I don't love the dev sweatily redirecting gamer rage to the publisher. I know this is their livelihood, and Sony deserves the blame for killing the game's momentum (hopefully temporarily), but anytime a game's representative humors / encourages the worst of a player base, it feels like the dev could throw anyone to the wolves. Maybe I'm just oversensitive to that in light of gamergate(s), but it feels bad.

I can't really format this list since I'm on mobile, but here's what I've been tracking to add to the next update in the summer:

Overwatch 2 finally gives up the ghost on PvE mode

Roblox defends the exploitation of child labor as "educational"

Possibility Space is shut down because the owner is the pettiest little freak of all time (imagines leaks to Kotaku? I still barely understand it)

Embracer Group splits into three entities, two of which have ridiculous names

Escape from Tarkov dev gates PvE mode behind $250 DLC despite already releasing a $100 DLC that promised all future additions as a feature

League of Legends introduces an overly aggressive anti-cheat program that can brick people's computers and often fails to run on Linux; the CEO responded petulantly and shut down all forum discussion of the topic

Helldivers 2 announces mandatory link to PSN account for Steam users, potentially cutting off access to the game in certain countries

Limited Run sends CD-Rs that don't run on a 3DO to some buyers as part of a premium reprint line

Additionally, I'm going to reword the Yuzu one to reflect the party most at fault and eliminate some candidates altogether (SAG-AFTRA, Xbox, Sony, Rockstar, Dragonball FighterZ, Last Epoch, and Dragon's Dogma 2). Hopefully we'll see something related to the Borderlands movie at SGF so I can promote it to the majors.

@ben_h: This is the biggest reason why I think this effort is destined for failure. Better studios than whatever Hasbro has access to are already grappling with the brain drain from their stupid please-the-investors 8% layoffs the last couple of years. But blowing up the key bridge to the games industry is only going to lead to them driving a billion dollars in cash over the edge of the cliff.

The 2021 reboot of Dark Alliance might be the worst game I've played in the last decade or more. I would expect games much closer to that level of quality than to BG3, if any (non-mobile) games even see the light of day.

Echoing what people have said, the Brotherhood of Steel stuff is the weakest part of an otherwise surprisingly very good show. If I weren't already super familiar with the BoS, I would be confused why they're doing any of the things they do in the show. Having more than 8 episodes would have potentially given more time to flesh them out in an interesting way.

That all said, I got very hype for more Fallout show at the end of the season. Hopefully, they don't disappoint with raised expectations.