RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, injurai said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umAgdVTBae0

 

That was good. Too bad they can't get that pacing down when they made the movie.

[Malcador]

Still funny that Stellaris doesn't have espionage yet, not even of the SEIV type.

[Lexx]

On 5/16/2019 at 5:31 AM, Hurlshot said:

That was good. Too bad they can't get that pacing down when they made the movie.

Makes me realize that I really loath Blizzard's visual styles. For me it's just always way too much. The ornaments, the proportions, all that stuff just looks so unappealing to me.

[Chilloutman]

just cartoons, thats why 3 visuals tanked

[injurai]

if only they toned down the shoulder pauldrons

[Malcador]

Never found them that obnoxious of late, although I guess it may be down to the races I've played. It is the most noticeable armour piece, though, so I guess that is why they overdid it.  Would be nice if all armour were separate models on top of the character model but I imagine that'd be too taxing, 

[HoonDing]

Last good BLizzard game was Blackthorne.

[injurai]

Why would you say something so controversial, yet so brave?

[Malcador]

https://www.pcgamer.com/players-are-flagging-wow-classic-features-because-they-think-theyre-bugs

Ah, these people that think they know vanilla. :P

[injurai]

2 minutes ago, Malcador said:

https://www.pcgamer.com/players-are-flagging-wow-classic-features-because-they-think-theyre-bugs

Ah, these people that think they know vanilla.

bless their hearts

[Lexx]

Reminds me of when we rolled back FOnline: 2238 to the 2009 release build as april 1st joke. Players always said that "old FOnline was the best", but this blast from the past didn't agree. So many missing features, unresponsive ai, balance tweaks and whatever else. Didn't realize how much the game had changed with every update over the years.

[algroth]

On 5/13/2019 at 10:27 AM, Malcador said:

https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/7/18534431/fortnite-rare-default-skins-bullying-harassment

Amazing what children will be pricks about.

Reminds me of Dan Olson's video on FOMO mechanics in Fortnite and so on:

 

[injurai]

I'm sure there are plenty of kids not being "ruined" by this new age of media, but I can't help but feel those who are left to fall into this stuff (either being lonely latchkeys or otherwise) are probably suffering for it more-so than previous generations.

In the entertainment world, it often seems like the route to a persons wallet is through their kid. And anything that can be done to encourage a youth culture that entices spending will be marketed to the fullest. That's not necessarily new, but it's very aggressive these days, and all within an economy that is far less mobile than in the past.

[Malcador]

All part of the Illuminati's plan.

[Wormerine]

While we are at Epic, the Epic Store Sale is an interesting topic.

What initially might seems like a swing into the other direction: attempting this time to bribe consumers into coming to Epic, instead of paying off devs/publishers, might have somewhat backfired, I saw somewhat, because I don't know what exact intentions were - I imagine the deals are good enough to get new people into the Epic Store (success!) but they might have pissed off publishers/developers (not good!).

Here is the short version: Epic store has currently discount on every game they sell: old, new, pre-orders. If the game costs more than 13,99 pounds (UK prices from me) they decrese it by 10 pounds. Some results are crazy - just announced indie John Wick game can be purchased for 4,39 (less than a 1/3 of its price), all ports of David Cage's older, ekhm, games can be bought for 5.99. 

How did Epic convinced game owners to do such drastic price cut before games are even out. Well, they didn't. They didn't ask for their permission, and didn't actually lower the cost for them. Epic is covering the missing discount and paying devs the full share.

All good then? Win, win? Not quite aparently. Game owners don't seem to be happy with their game getting devalued, often before they even launch. There was some brief attempt from Supergiant to raise price of Hades earlier then they planned, the big boyz Borderlands3 and Bloodlines got temporarly pulled from the shop for the duration of the sale.

Fun times.

[Chilloutman]

Bloodlines are Epic only?

[ShadySands]

Nope, not an Epic exclusive or timed exclusive or even semi-exclusive.

 

[Humanoid]

Haven't visited their store yet, but I like Epic more now.

[melkathi]

The store needs work. I haven't found a way to sort games to find things I could be interested in. May be that there just aren't enough games on offer yet so they haven't felt the need to make a proper store.

[LittleArmadillo0]

I can understand slashing the prices of some of the games that have been on their store for a while, but doing that for pre-orders? That just sound really strange marketing move.

[Lexx]

3 hours ago, Wormerine said:

All good then? Win, win? Not quite aparently. Game owners don't seem to be happy with their game getting devalued, often before they even launch. There was some brief attempt from Supergiant to raise price of Hades earlier then they planned, the big boyz Borderlands3 and Bloodlines got temporarly pulled from the shop for the duration of the sale.

Fun times.

So that's why Ubisoft games weren't accessible while the sale runs? Didn't they said it was "a software issue"?

[Wormerine]

I don’t know about Ubi, but multiple devs certainly seem unhappy about it.

Klei and Paradox pulled their games out of the sale:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-05-17-paradox-pulls-bloodlines-2-from-epic-store-during-mega-sale

 

so did Gearbox:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-05-18-borderlands-3-pre-order-pulled-from-epic-games-store-amid-mega-sale-kerfuffle

 

Supergiant got a panic attack as well:

https://www.supergiantgames.com/blog

 

If this act of devaluing the game is as undesirable as it seems, devs might be more cautious about signing with Epic, if they keep up this behaviour. Especially undesired for non-exclusive games to have their game on sale. ONI is to launch next month I think, clearly a bad idea to have it discounted by 10 pounds. 

[Wormerine]

8 hours ago, LittleArmadillo0 said:I can understand slashing the prices of some of the games that have been on their store for a while, but doing that for pre-orders? That just sound really strange marketing move.

It’s a new thing, certainly- an aggressive move to get people to use Epic Store, which should be a major short term financial loss. It is not an uncommon move - slashing prices compared to competition, until you are one man standing. Considering that the biggest titles got pulled, I wonder if it is still as effective as Epic hoped it would be. 

While a generous deal for consumers, something about it still rubs me the wrong way. For one, it is clearly “a deal with the devil” kind of sale, as it is not a legitimate long term business practice. Things won’t stay like that, because it’s unprofitable, it’s just an attempt to choke the competition. While one might have a “that serves you well” attitude toward those who signed Epic exclusive, it might be damaging for those who just used Epic as another store: be it Klei or Paradox.

 This was done without a heads up, to game owners. I don’t like **** moves like that, even if I am one benefitting. 

I am curious to see if this incident will have an impact on future Epic/Publisher relations. 

[LittleArmadillo0]

Yeah this whole event felt really shady. If anything it makes both Epic and the publishers/developers seem untrustworthy. I think it is nice that Epic is willing to cover for the loss in sales but I just don't know how long Epic is going to be footing the bill for the sales but I imagine it can't go on forever, they would just end up bleeding money.

[Mamoulian War]

Well, thanks to Fortnite, they can have pretty long period, before bleeding dry.