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

After releasing in May and then being delisted for more time in the oven after concurrent players plunged to the low triple digits, Amazon's Crucible is officially dead.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/...

They apparently almost released it in 2018 but didn't because Amazon thought it wasn't ready to be a "billion-dollar franchise", and then after two more years of doing... something, I presume? ...released the wreck we knew and loathed. They spent six years on this and it didn't last six months.

The Wired article was good, I read it the other day. Amazon has no idea what they're doing with games. It's a shame because they're paying better money than other publishers/devs.

Crucible's outcome was no surprise. Bunch of people were on the initial alpha testing for Crucible which was cancelled. Then all of the sudden 2 years later they 'launch' and it was obvious from the start that if there was any testing done it was in house and on a small scale. It had some good ideas, but lacked polish and direction. They should've kept it shelved, but i suspect that with the F2P game The Cycle which had a similar format becoming popular they had a shot.

New World is showing that they're capable to learn from their mistakes, but in the process they seem to be stuck in analysis paralysis and not committing completely in their vision for the game and it's suffering for it. This 'break' due to Covid i hope is enough time for them to pick a path and stick with it.

For what it's worth Lumberyard at least in New World is working as advertised. At least for mid to high end rigs. So even if New World sinks. The learning and tech they get from it hopefully can be translated over to the new LotR game.

Not entirely surprising, but allegedly Sony will be discontinuing the purchase of PSP, Vita, and PS3 games via PSN starting on October 18th. Wishlists will also be removed from the store, but that's obviously less of a concern.

Seems a little early. I check my Vita wish list 2-3 times a month. Still, I guess they’ve done the math.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Not entirely surprising, but allegedly Sony will be discontinuing the purchase of PSP, Vita, and PS3 games via PSN starting on October 18th. Wishlists will also be removed from the store, but that's obviously less of a concern.

My understanding is the purchases being restricted are from the revamped web store. You'll still be able to purchase games from PSN from the individual devices.

trueheart78 wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Not entirely surprising, but allegedly Sony will be discontinuing the purchase of PSP, Vita, and PS3 games via PSN starting on October 18th. Wishlists will also be removed from the store, but that's obviously less of a concern.

My understanding is the purchases being restricted are from the revamped web store. You'll still be able to purchase games from PSN from the individual devices.

Correct, which is an important distinction as it's very easy to think everyone is losing access to ps1 games and whatnot.

That will kill off the PSP, though, as the PSP can no longer access the store interface on the device. The only way to purchase PSP games is to buy them on the web and then download them from your purchased items list on the console.

Pour one out for the PSP.

Not sure if this qualifies.

I was about to buy my first game on epic and who greets me? Dr Disrespect is front and center in the store.

Who thought that was a good idea? Back to steam I go.

Stealthpizza wrote:

Who thought that was a good idea?

The developers of Rogue Company.

Stealthpizza wrote:

Back to steam I go.

No problematic content there...

It is sad when steam is the best looking storefront. I just need epic and CD project to stop doing dumb stuff.

Wow, I wonder what you did to see that. My home page only ever opens up to game deals. Wonder if it's an adblock thing.

BadKen wrote:

Wow, I wonder what you did to see that. My home page only ever opens up to game deals. Wonder if it's an adblock thing.

It’s a banner for a game “starring” Dr Disrespect.

I can’t stand the guy, but not using Epic because of it is like not going to a theater because they have a movie poster in the lobby with Mel Gibson on it.

PaladinTom wrote:
BadKen wrote:

Wow, I wonder what you did to see that. My home page only ever opens up to game deals. Wonder if it's an adblock thing.

It’s a banner for a game “starring” Dr Disrespect.

I can’t stand the guy, but not using Epic because of it is like not going to a theater because they have a movie poster in the lobby with Mel Gibson on it.

I think that is a legitimate reason not to go to theater. If you have a moral issue with supporting a business that is helping someone repugnant make money, good for you for standing for your principles.

Oh so that guy in rogue company is an obnoxious youtuber? Well that's dumb.

Did they put him in the game now? I thought they were just touting that their new patch had some maps designed by him.

Edit: Oh I see, they made a skin that looks like him for one of the existing characters too. Welp I'm certainly no fan of Guy the guy myself, but he also endorses Roccat peripherals, should I not have bought the Roccat mouse that felt the best to me after months of trying different mice because they used a sketchy guy for marketing? Rogue Company is an interesting game and this will definitely bring it some attention it's kind of struggled to get so far, too bad they felt this was necessary but I understand the decision. Doesn't change how I feel about the game either way any more than it changes how I feel about my mouse.

Per twitter, Kojima productions has started their next project and is hiring for it. Hot take, but based on the accounts of the J>E translators of the early MGS games, I imagine kojipro probably isn't a terribly fun place to work.

How Sierra Was Captured, Then Killed, by a Massive Accounting Fraud

Williams has compared the end of Sierra to watching his child be tortured to death, but does not, in his book, offer a culprit, and has no real animosity for the most obvious candidate. Why is that? I spoke to Williams, and many others, to understand: if Sierra On-Line was murdered, why does Ken Williams seem to like the man who did it?

Wow good article!

Kerbal Space Program 2 delayed until April 2022 at the earliest.

What is going on over there? Did they start over after shutting down Star Theory? I recall Jason Schreier reported they lost about a third of the staff, and that had to hurt, but wow.

Take Two has bought Codemasters.

There was a rumor earlier today but looks like it was legit.

garion333 wrote:

Take Two has bought Codemasters.

There was a rumor earlier today but looks like it was legit.

What is left of codemasters? The racing studios and cricket?

Just racing these days. It's been about 10 years since their last cricket game - the latest ones have been made by Big Ant.

Yup, just racing. They went all in on racing a handful of years back since its their bread and butter. Don't think they've been too successful lately.

That's not too surprising as these always online games seem to be the new MMO war. Many will try, few will survive.

Am I a bad person if this pleased me a tiny bit, because of the Spider-Man kerfuffle?

It really seems like it isn't worth working with a Disney property, and everyone will figure that out at some point.

I have read some discussion whether this is actually what Square-Enix said in the briefing, or if it's something an analyst came up with on his own. The release linked from that article includes the following:

At the HD (High-Definition) Game sub-segment, the six-month period ended September 30, 2020 saw the release of major titles including “FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE” and “Marvel’s Avengers,” growth in digital sales of catalog titles, and licensing income that resulted in higher net sales than in the same period of the previous fiscal year, as well as a turn to profit at the operating line.

This is a slide from the briefing (PDF):

IMAGE(https://i.ibb.co/j34sVzM/squenix-report-slide.png)

That doesn't read to me like SqEnix is worried about Avengers performance.

Marvel's Avengers is a whipping boy for the gaming press right now because it had issues at launch, and the "endgame" is lacking. There have been delays in releasing promised content. SqEnix had a loss in the last quarter, but it is unclear if that had anything to do with Avengers.

BTW, I don't have a dog in this fight. I played the campaign, it was a one-and-done for me. I don't much care what happens with the game or with Square Enix for that matter. However, I am not a fan of Reddit gaming debates turning into gaming press articles, and after reading the discussion of this on reddit, based on a tweet from some rando analyst, it looks an awful lot like that's what happened here.