RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS

[Gfted1]

Does D3 on console offer MP / Battlenet as an option?

[Malcador]

At least in D3's case being online means you're subject to lag when trying to play solo

[Amentep]

Does D3 on console offer MP / Battlenet as an option?

 

Yes, it does allow you to play MP if you want to.

[Katphood]

 

Well, for one reason or another, BioWare/EA have completely lost faith in single-player games.

You can't exploit **** out of your players in single player game as good as in "Live Service" even if poor implemented. It's not about faith. It's the public traded companies goal of earning all of the money in the world by whatever means, instead of having lower but steady cashflow from maximally satisfied and happy customers.

I wonder what will happen when the 'Live Service' thingie fails because Anthem ended up being a failure. Now they are giving the same treatment to Dragon Age 4.

[Mamoulian War]

Same what happened after the MMO thingie failed. Everybody wanted to be a WoW killer, but now, most of the publishers avoid MMOs like a plague.

[Keyrock]

https://youtu.be/wesvzmNEMpU

 

Indiana Jones X-COM? I hope it plays as good as it looks and sounds. Out today.

Edited April 11, 2019 by Keyrock

[213374U]

Same what happened after the MMO thingie failed. Everybody wanted to be a WoW killer, but now, most of the publishers avoid MMOs like a plague.

 

Meaning... something even worse will come along, championed by some clueless suit promising the board an eleventy trillion yearly revenue, only for the model to crash and burn half a decade later?

 

I can't wait.

[pmp10]

 

Same what happened after the MMO thingie failed. Everybody wanted to be a WoW killer, but now, most of the publishers avoid MMOs like a plague.

 

Meaning... something even worse will come along, championed by some clueless suit promising the board an eleventy trillion yearly revenue, only for the model to crash and burn half a decade later?

 

I can't wait.

 

Maybe except for the crashing and burning part.

Micro-transactions have not gone away and I doubt service model will either.

In the end, money talks.

[Mamoulian War]

Issue with all the service stuff is, that people do not have infinite money, so as with Ultima, Everquest and lastly WoW, there will be one service to dominate them all, and all other will be canibalizong each other with their fight for the scraps. Same happened with PUB G and then Fortnite. All other are just a small fraction of all the money required to be it the most profitable thing ever, so likes of Acti and Ubi will sooner or later cancel their stuff. Same with looter shooters. Only thing which was able to shake the things at least for a little bit, was Apex.

[kanisatha]

Its not even an Elder Scrolls wanna be. It's more like an extremely ****ty WoW.

Fair enough. I liked DA3, and by contrast have hated the Elder Scrolls games. I abandoned Skyrim at about the halfway point and have never gone back to it.

[ShadySands]

More piling on

 

BioWare's Future: Destroy (EA), Control (Going Solo) Or Synthesis (New Publisher)

 

BioWare appears to be on somewhat shaky ground as of late, with two high profile critical misses (Andromeda and Anthem) and one recently rebooted sequel (Dragon Age 4). That’s led some to wonder about the future of the studio, and whether or not things can continue on their current path.

 

The way I see it, BioWare has three different options going forward, and I have conveniently tied them into the endings of Mass Effect 3 because I thought it would be funny and it actually…kind of works.

[injurai]

In ME3 I picked the 4th option. To not play. Seems like the right pick for BioWare's future too.

[Oner]

So it doesn't matter what ending Bioware goes for, they'll just have a color change?

[the_dog_days]

I'm honestly surprised that EA hasn't liquidated them yet. Looking at their games developed under EA you have Mass Effect 2 (good, but not as good as most people think), Dragon Age 2 (they forgot to add a main plot), Knights of the Old Republic (financial failure), Mass Effect 3 (which is worse than you remember, even without the ending), Dragon Age Inquisition (I like it 'cause it's the only MMO I can play offline ), Mass Effect Andromeda (a failure critically), and Anthem (another poorly received game no matter how well it did financially). They terminated Westwood for fewer screw ups.

[injurai]

Strong brand recognition. Chops in a genre that not many developers successfully produce in. Still a somewhat novel take on that genre. Continually bending towards mass appeal. Leverage of sexual and romantic pursuits. Strong marketing campaigns and promises of totally unique settings.

 

Not surprised it lasted this long, but it seems like they've run their course unless something is done to reform the division. Honestly though it's less BioWare needs to be whipped into shape by EA, and more EA has made BioWare what they are today. That's why its been encouraged this long. It makes money. Now that the brand is soiled and the EA has lost their minds with a predatory format, only finally might they consider something different.

 

Plus investing now after so many years of scalping is a lot easier to stomach than investing for the sake of pure growth along like what Amazon, CDPR, and Apple all tend to do. Which means minimizing dividend payouts. EA investors want their dividends and they want them now.

Edited April 12, 2019 by injurai

[Hurlshort]

I'm honestly surprised that EA hasn't liquidated them yet. Looking at their games developed under EA you have Mass Effect 2 (good, but not as good as most people think), Dragon Age 2 (they forgot to add a main plot), Knights of the Old Republic (financial failure), Mass Effect 3 (which is worse than you remember, even without the ending), Dragon Age Inquisition (I like it 'cause it's the only MMO I can play offline ), Mass Effect Andromeda (a failure critically), and Anthem (another poorly received game no matter how well it did financially). They terminated Westwood for fewer screw ups.

 

Lots of opinions there, though. EA cares about the financials more than anything. EA likely views ME 2&3 and DA 2&3 as solid successes. KotOR cost a ton, so its unlikely it is seen as a success, although it did manage to create a stable income for a number of years. I'd say Andromeda failed financially, but it might have been cheap to make because of the cheap studio choice. I have no idea what is the deal with Anthem financially. 

[Oner]

IIRC Andromeda made a satisfactory amount of money according to EA, but with their obsession in getting All The Money I don't know how that would be possible.

[majestic]

I'm honestly surprised that EA hasn't liquidated them yet. Looking at their games developed under EA you have Mass Effect 2 (good, but not as good as most people think), Dragon Age 2 (they forgot to add a main plot), Knights of the Old Republic (financial failure), Mass Effect 3 (which is worse than you remember, even without the ending), Dragon Age Inquisition (I like it 'cause it's the only MMO I can play offline ), Mass Effect Andromeda (a failure critically), and Anthem (another poorly received game no matter how well it did financially). They terminated Westwood for fewer screw ups.

 

I don't get the point about DA2. Origins and Mass Effect also only had an excuse main plot that barely - if at all -  bound a few side stories together (and they are really similar. REALLY REALLY similar). That's okay of course because not everything needs a strong main plot. ME2 was all about the characters and Origins had genuinely interesting stories and lore to follow while you recruited help for the fight.

 

DA2's problem storywise was the lack of interesting world building and forgettable characters - at least compared to other Bioware games.

 

Lots of opinions there, though. EA cares about the financials more than anything. EA likely views ME 2&3 and DA 2&3 as solid successes. KotOR cost a ton, so its unlikely it is seen as a success, although it did manage to create a stable income for a number of years. I'd say Andromeda failed financially, but it might have been cheap to make because of the cheap studio choice. I have no idea what is the deal with Anthem financially.

 

The copies sold and subscriptions retained for the first six months easily made up the development cost (and then some) of SW:TOR and the game was in the top 10 most successful online games for a time after going free to play. It wasn't very well received and the subscriber base dwindled at a record pace in the beginning but a commercial flop it certainly wasn't.

 

By any realistic measure, that is. Applying WoW metrics to any MMO released after 2004 makes literally all of them flops. I'm sure that's what EA was expecting but they probably patted themselves on the back when the game made 200 million dollars per year with a development team on life support.

[Hurlshort]

Rumors are it cost about 400 million to make SWTOR, so I'm not sure that it made that back right away. But all these financials are speculative, so it's hard to really know for sure.

[Gorth]

Rumors are it cost about 400 million to make SWTOR, so I'm not sure that it made that back right away. But all these financials are speculative, so it's hard to really know for sure.

 

The number I heard was 200 (gamespot referencing a no longer existing Los Angels Times article, but it's still a tonne of money. Without a cash shop, it would have required 1 million users for a year to make a profit? (numbers pulled out of my butt, mind you)

 

As for how Bioware ended up in where they are, I wouldn't really point fingers at EA, but at Bioware management and company culture. Things you can get away with as a small company tends to explode spectacularly and create headlines when playing the big league. Lots of talented people doing the work. but less impressive management.

[the_dog_days]

 

I'm honestly surprised that EA hasn't liquidated them yet. Looking at their games developed under EA you have Mass Effect 2 (good, but not as good as most people think), Dragon Age 2 (they forgot to add a main plot), Knights of the Old Republic (financial failure), Mass Effect 3 (which is worse than you remember, even without the ending), Dragon Age Inquisition (I like it 'cause it's the only MMO I can play offline ), Mass Effect Andromeda (a failure critically), and Anthem (another poorly received game no matter how well it did financially). They terminated Westwood for fewer screw ups.

 

I don't get the point about DA2. Origins and Mass Effect also only had an excuse main plot that barely - if at all -  bound a few side stories together (and they are really similar. REALLY REALLY similar). That's okay of course because not everything needs a strong main plot.

 

BioWare has always used the basic movie plot structure for all their good games. A movie has to have a centural problem even if that problem is, "I can't relate to my family." BW games always have bigger primary plot points because they make epics (Baldur's Gate 1: stopping Sarevok from starting a war with Amn and ascending to godhood, Baldur's Gate 2: saving Imoen from Irenicus/saving yourself from slayer, Neverwinter Nights: stopping the wailing death from destroying the city then to find all the words of power, KOTOR: find all the pieces of the Star Forge to stop Darth Malak, Mass Effect: stopping the reapers from destroying all sapient life in the galaxy, and Dragon Age Origins: gathering an army to stop the blight from spreading father.

 

There are side stories, but they connect to a main goal. There is no main goal of Dragon Age 2. I've heard people say that protecting your family is the goal, but if it is then the game is even worse because no matter what you do you'll always end up with just your crazy uncle. Others have said that its a mercenary simulator. I wish. The character gets involved in way too many (in game) political fights for this statement to hold water. DA 2 is three acts that don't have a unifying plot thread to connect them into an over arcing story.

 

TLDR: Dragon Age 2 didn't have a main plot.

Edited April 12, 2019 by the_dog_days

[213374U]

Rumors are it cost about 400 million to make SWTOR, so I'm not sure that it made that back right away. But all these financials are speculative, so it's hard to really know for sure.

 

Yeah, it's all speculation. The game kept being mentioned as a revenue growth force in earnings calls (at least until ~2016, which is where I stopped bothering), so I'm inclined to believe that it was regarded as a somewhat stable, if rather unexciting, source of profits for EA.

 

Of course if the idea was to kill WoW it failed, but that doesn't mean it was an unprofitable failure.

Edited April 12, 2019 by 213374U

[marelooke]

 

https://www.pcgamer.com/new-games-2019/

 

Great list of upcoming games for 2019 

 

In a very real sense the video games industry seems over-saturated.

 

 

Eh, if you remove all the exclusives that list might quickly become pretty manageable I'd expect, especially with the backlog I've managed to build up.

 

Same what happened after the MMO thingie failed. Everybody wanted to be a WoW killer, but now, most of the publishers avoid MMOs like a plague.

 

Unfortunately. There's not many good MMOs around (and many of the ones that are/were decent are suffering from massive neglect and/or being sold to F2P cashgrab companies) and innovation is absolutely nowhere to be found in the genre. Barring a very few exceptions they're all just WoW clones in some form or other and WoW was already a dumbed down clone of what came before.

Edited April 12, 2019 by marelooke

[majestic]

The number I heard was 200 (gamespot referencing a no longer existing Los Angels Times article, but it's still a tonne of money. Without a cash shop, it would have required 1 million users for a year to make a profit? (numbers pulled out of my butt, mind you)

 

No, why would it? The game sold 2 million copies at launch. That's more than half of the supposed development cost right from the start. The game had 1.3 million subs after the first six months, if all of them bought the cheap six months plan the game had it's estimated development cost brough in after February.

 

BioWare information at the time was that the game needed a stable 250k subsribers to keep it going, updated and turn in a small profit. And let's not forget EA sold already finished content that was supposed to be released to the players as free patches early in the game cycle as the first game's expansion.

 

edit:

 

And even with SW:TOR bleeding subscriptions like mad it remained the second largest subscription MMO on the market until it went free to play. Many players don't realize how small most MMO's userbases are compared to WoW at it's peak.

 

The really sad part is that if EA launched the game in summer after some polishing instead of during the holiday season it would have hit the market in WoW's most dire content draught after a much hated expansion with a very nice base. Just imagine Asation and Explosive Conflict already in the game at launch. Meh.

Edited April 12, 2019 by majestic

[Gorth]

Hmm, because the $200m is only the initial development cost, not the running cost. Even assuming they sold 2 million boxes of $100 each (not including any subscriptions at all) would not cover the cost of the game the first day after launch. Only the subscribers would be able to cover the running costs.

 

I checked a few websites (because I was curious) and none of them has swtor in their top 10, whether it being popular, populous, healthiest etc. whatever at the end of 2018. So it might have been able to stave off death by starvation for a while, but I do honestly wonder why EA is bothering at the moment (unless there is something we don't know in their Star Wars license agreement).