The Great Video Game Business and Financial (In)Stability Thread

Carlbear95 wrote:

For a lot of folks removing that stress and uncertainty of the future is a big deal, and a lot more important than having their name on a marquis.

Well, of course, there's no point in tattooing a mere marquis. Getting their names on a baron or a duke would be far more inspiring.

Realized my spelling error after additional responses. didn't want to draw people back to this thread for it, but a week later you got me!

marquee it is then.

Agathos wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

That is really going to upset 1s of people.

I don't play Terraria or use Stadia, but I find it upsetting. If a developer whom Google should be helping to boost their platform can't get any support when his account is randomly locked, what hope do I have if/when it eventually happens to me?

I've always had that concern. I find Googles suite of services incredibly useful but I'm fully aware that if someone goes wrong there is no one I can actually call and discuss the problem with. Or even text chat. I can only send form requests off into the ether and hope that something comes of it.

In my experience, the only way to get anything out of Google is with a court order.

Google: Don't Be Evil

Alphabet: We literally make robots that kill people

ccesarano wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the versions of Cyberpunk on Series X/S and PS5 are the current-gen versions, not the next-gen, right? The next-gen upgrade/versions haven't released yet?

The Series X/S runs a modified version with extra graphical options and larger crowd sizes. That's the only reason I made the comment about marketing. Maybe they were incentivized to put a little more time into that version.

This is separate from that next-gen patch they are supposed to get sometime later this year.

Agathos wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

That is really going to upset 1s of people.

I don't play Terraria or use Stadia, but I find it upsetting. If a developer whom Google should be helping to boost their platform can't get any support when his account is randomly locked, what hope do I have if/when it eventually happens to me?

None, welcome to late-stage Capitalism. You are the product, not the customer.

CD Projekt Red was hacked, had their data stolen, and their servers encrypted. The hackers are threatening to release documentation related to accounting, HR, administration and others, as well as the source code for Cyberpunk, Witcher 3, Gwent, and an unreleased version of Witcher 3. CDPR says that they won't be negotiating or giving in, so expect these things to become public in the near future.

sh*t, who had that in the Bold Predictions thread?

So we can do that but we couldn't get Trump's tax returns?
Maybe we should have said that CDPR's next game info was hidden in them?

strangederby wrote:

Google removes don't be evil from code of condut.

From 2018.

They bought Doubleclick, one of the more evil companies at the time, and that poisoned their corporate culture.

Ubisoft Moving Away From Reliance on AAA Releases

"We said for a number of years that our normal template is to come with either three or four AAA games, so we'll stick to that plan for fiscal 2022," said CFO Frederick Duguet. "But we see that we are progressively, continuously moving from a model that used to be only focused on AAA releases to a model where we have a combination of strong releases from AAA and strong back catalog dynamics, but also complimenting our program of new releases with free-to-play and other premium experiences."

[...]

Notably, there wasn't a single mention on the call about Ubisoft's free-to-play battle royale Hyper Scape, which flopped tremendously at launch and is currently undergoing an overhaul.

Translation: The Division 2 should've been made a part of the Division 1 and we learned our lesson.

Also, we won't release AC, Watch Dogs and AC-lite in the span of a month anymore.

garion333 wrote:

Translation: The Division 2 should've been made a part of the Division 1 and we learned our lesson.

I realize the timeline of how long The Division 2 was probably in development probably made this difficult, but couldn't they have learned this lesson for free from Destiny 2? And for that matter, the GOAT, WoW, which has wisely avoided doing a numbered sequel and breaking from past progression?

So much wisdom is available for free if people will just learn from others' missteps.

garion333 wrote:

Translation: The Division 2 should've been made a part of the Division 1 and we learned our lesson.

Also, we won't release AC, Watch Dogs and AC-lite in the span of a month anymore.

"We've learned our lesson, which sounds a lot like the lesson we said we learned 14 months ago."

garion333 wrote:

Translation: The Division 2 should've been made a part of the Division 1 and we learned our lesson.

I disagree. Destiny 2 became so bloated they sunset a tonne of their content, then waffled on that when their player base lashed out, and now Destiny is a mess for all but the die hards. Div2 needed the engine upgrade to succeed and a lot of the concepts in the game were fundamentally different and wouldn't work in the first game.

I think they see the success of something like R6 Siege and it's legs and want to attach those models to AC in a way that micro-transaction cosmetics just can't do. Evolve the worlds in meaningful ways instead of pushing out a sequel every year.

I think Ubi's biggest problem right now is there's little diversification in their franchises. There's a REASON "Ubistyle" is a meme and I think they need to break away from that mold instead of just pumping out and releasing different AAA skins and titles on similar-enough base games.

Meanwhile I read it as "We're done chasing the trends of AAA trend-chasing trends that were trendy for a while, but now we're going to start trend-chasing the free-to-play trends that have been trendy for the past few years and trend on social media and twitch where all the trendy kids go to trend".

Translation: We are going to re-sell old games as remasters since they are pretty to cheap to make. And more DLC for everyone!

In light of Ubisoft's changing priorities, The Division 2 will be receiving more content updates this year. The game had previously been wound down with its last update, but now they'll be adding more content to it.

Interesting. Maybe my wish for a next gen update for Odyssey will come true.

For Crucible they deserve getting the beating they've had for that c*ck up, but they really do seem to be trying to do things right with New World. Although it means another pushed launch date.

I'm fine with pushed launch dates. Would rather games come out when they're ready than garbage on day one.

Top_Shelf wrote:

I'm fine with pushed launch dates. Would rather games come out when they're ready than garbage on day one.

I agree, but still disappointed that they're running away from the open world concepts and building more of a theme park style game.

EA finishes acquiring Codemasters.

Oh, and Konami opened an official web shop filled with iconography of past games that they no longer make. It's an interesting move that, to me, indicates just how insightful yet mercenary the company has become. T-shirts and other home goods products for properties sell in droves, so why not just cut out the middle-man and sell your own products? No doubt cheaper and less risky than actually making games, and gamers are suckers for consumerism!

But, uh... $30+ for a t-shirt? Especially one that has pretty much no imagination and looks like a cheap $20 one you'd find in the Target men's section for "casual" wear? Bleh.

Pretty sure this mug is over-priced as well, but at least not as greatly compared to other mugs I've bought from shops like ThinkGeek in the past, and it actually looks somewhat neat a design (somewhat (maybe (probably not))).

Castlevania pillows look nice, though.

For a $30 t-shirt or mug you could make it yourself for less at cafe press or other online shop...
Like this for $14.94:
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/OmbLAT0.jpg)

fry_shocked.gif

What else do Bioware have in the hopper - more Dragon Age and Mass Effect re-release?

Which is to say - how f*cked are they?

So f*cked.