Random video game news... Games are Randomly News Worthy

[Hawke64]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/epic-games-reportedly-hit-by-200gb-ransomware-attack-including-login-and-payment-info

Quote

Epic Games are investigating a claim that the Fortnite publishers have suffered a massive ransomware attack, with almost 200GB of data reportedly stolen including emails, passwords, full names, payment information, source code and more besides.

 

[Azdeus]

https://www.eurogamer.net/star-citizen-developer-hit-with-layoffs-amid-claims-of-a-highly-toxic-company

Well, this isn't really surprising, hard times means people won't be as willing to buy jpgs anymore I guess.

[Lexx]

I mean, lots of video game companies have layoffs this year.

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, Lexx said:

I mean, lots of video game companies have layoffs this year.

With a much higher interest rates, a lot of investors choose different way of investing, so game industry pretty much run out of “free” money, and has to adapt. Most of the time, it starts with layoffs

[LadyCrimson]

Over inflated budgets plus perhaps live-streaming revenue not living up to (long term) expectations plays a role too.

They really need to scale back budgets/expectations on most projects, which could also decrease the risk-averse nature of AAA game development a bit.  Not that they're likely going to, just like most risk-averse "blockbuster" movies won't.  Thus we will all continue to look more frequently at smaller dev projects for that.

 

 

Edited February 29 by LadyCrimson

[Azdeus]

19 hours ago, Lexx said:

I mean, lots of video game companies have layoffs this year.

Sure, but CIG is in a unique situation amongst the gaming space since their money generally doesn't come from a publisher, and doesn't have a release date. If they get low on cash they release a new jpg and people typically throw money at them.

[MrBrown]

 

[Sarex]

14 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Over inflated budgets plus perhaps live-streaming revenue not living up to (long term) expectations plays a role too.

They really need to scale back budgets/expectations on most projects, which could also decrease the risk-averse nature of AAA game development a bit.  Not that they're likely going to, just like most risk-averse "blockbuster" movies won't.  Thus we will all continue to look more frequently at smaller dev projects for that.

 

 

They will not destroy it, but maybe crash it. Which may not be a bad thing.

[Lexx]

1 hour ago, Azdeus said:

Sure, but CIG is in a unique situation amongst the gaming space since their money generally doesn't come from a publisher, and doesn't have a release date. If they get low on cash they release a new jpg and people typically throw money at them.

It's not that easy. If I remember right, they had less cash influx lately. Also there have been lots of people who complained about them sending out so many marketing mails not so long ago. Like once every day, or even more often. It became really bad - so I guess they tried to make people buy more stuff.

[Bartimaeus]

I've been praying for a video game industry crash for like the past ten years, but haven't ever seen much evidence of it materializing. It'd hurt like hell in the short term, but it seems to be the only way forward to really shake things up and get another decade or two of good games instead of just...products only made for extracting money out of us. And if it kills off a few companies like Ubisoft in the process, how can you be upset about that? I'd drop a nuke on their headquarters myself if I could.

...Uh, maybe my rhetoric got a little extreme there, but you know what I mean.

Edited March 1 by Bartimaeus

[Hurlshort]

18 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I've been praying for a video game industry crash for like the past ten years, but haven't ever seen much evidence of it materializing. It'd hurt like hell in the short term, but it seems to be the only way forward to really shake things up and get another decade or two of good games instead of just...products only made for extracting money out of us. And if it kills off a few companies like Ubisoft in the process, how can you be upset about that? I'd drop a nuke on their headquarters myself if I could.

...Uh, maybe my rhetoric got a little extreme there, but you know what I mean.

I don't know why we need a crash. There are a ton of good games being developed outside of the AAA studios. We are basically in the golden age of gaming right now. Any type of game you could possibly want is probably in development by some indie studio, and they have the tools to make it look and play great. The big concern would be the big fish buying up the small indie fish and ruining that. So far Microsoft has been buying up plenty of fish, but I'm not sure that it has ruined the diversity...yet.

[Mamoulian War]

8 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

I don't know why we need a crash. There are a ton of good games being developed outside of the AAA studios. We are basically in the golden age of gaming right now. Any type of game you could possibly want is probably in development by some indie studio, and they have the tools to make it look and play great. The big concern would be the big fish buying up the small indie fish and ruining that. So far Microsoft has been buying up plenty of fish, but I'm not sure that it has ruined the diversity...yet.

Well, it definitely did not in the short term, but in the long term, having very few big "focus-testing-driven" fishes in a pond, can hurt a lot the current diversity of produced games. Especially if other engines decide to pull another Unity-like "stunt" as well.

[Bartimaeus]

50 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

I don't know why we need a crash. There are a ton of good games being developed outside of the AAA studios. We are basically in the golden age of gaming right now. Any type of game you could possibly want is probably in development by some indie studio, and they have the tools to make it look and play great. The big concern would be the big fish buying up the small indie fish and ruining that. So far Microsoft has been buying up plenty of fish, but I'm not sure that it has ruined the diversity...yet.

Obviously, I very much respect, support, and enjoy the fruits of indie game development, but AAA studios are largely the only ones capable of making large and cutting-edge games - with the resources to fully realize their worlds, stories, characters, audio, environments, et al. in new and different ways that really push the medium forward. Most of the games I've enjoyed within the past ten years have been indie-developed titles, but while indie developers are great at doing some things, there's a lot that they simply can't do given their realities of manpower and resources. It's pretty much the same way @Gorgon has often bemoaned the state of studio film-making: while smaller and independent-ish films made today can be great for what they can do and what they try to accomplish, their small cast of actors, their inability to have expensive visual effects, their limited options for sets/locations, the kinds of stories and settings that they can realistically try to explore given their limitations...well, if you're like Gorgon and you want new, big, exciting films that come out with large fanfare rather than just more soulless, over-formulaic Hollywood dreck pushed out for the sake of being a product, your options for new things to watch start to get sad pretty quickly. It's the same way I really like 2D animated movies/shows (especially when it's traditional animation), and while I still occasionally find things that I like, you just don't see any great big 2D animation productions of any kind any more: it's all smaller, budget-limited stuff aimed at very specific niche audiences. I have largely accepted that I am never going to experience anything new in that vein that even approaches the heights of my favorite things released in the 80s and 90s, some stuff that I first watched as a kid but also some stuff that I first watched as an adult, and that's just the way it's going to be given the realities of the relevant industries. But it didn't used to always be this way, with either film or video games or animation. Times change, and it can be painful to try to adapt when it seems like nothing scratches the itch for your particular want.

On a side-note, there is just so much content (a lot garbage, but certainly not all of it!) being constantly pushed out for pretty much every medium that it's absolutely overwhelming to try to find what you might like, particularly if your tastes aren't very mainstream. I very much regret that there are games, movies, television shows, musical artists, books et al. that I would love and which would prove meaningful to me and others I might share them with...if only I could find and experience them. But I can't, because they're drowned out by the endless tidal waves of everything else, and there's not enough time in the day or my life for me to realistically do anything about it.

Edited March 1 by Bartimaeus

[Keyrock]

I don't think AAA studios are going to destroy the industry, but I definitely see them destroying themselves. Maybe not all of them, but some of the big AAA publishers and developers will absolutely go under or get taken over. I think Ubisoft will be the first to go, they've already almost been hostile taken over multiple times over the last decade or so.

[Lexx]

The industry became way too big to crash. There's always going to be someone who survives.

[kanisatha]

18 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Over inflated budgets plus perhaps live-streaming revenue not living up to (long term) expectations plays a role too.

They really need to scale back budgets/expectations on most projects, which could also decrease the risk-averse nature of AAA game development a bit.  Not that they're likely going to, just like most risk-averse "blockbuster" movies won't.  Thus we will all continue to look more frequently at smaller dev projects for that.

I saw this story some time ago, and fully agree. I am quite certain BG3 cost even more than CP2077, over half a billion, and that is indeed not sustainable. But I also feel the silver lining is that other than a few studios here and there, most studios have come to understand and appreciate this point, and are signaling that they will be scaling back, even if this makes those gamers who want and demand the huge-budget AAA games mad.

For my part, I'd MUCH rather a studio make five $200m games than two $500m games, or even better ten $100m games.

Edited March 1 by kanisatha

[Gorgon]

They spent nearly 500 mil on cyberpunk ?

that is pretty mind boggling.

 

 

[HoonDing]

Still can't be arsed to play any of those.

[Keyrock]

Dragon's Dogma 2 is less than a month away.

I've long been puzzled as to why more games don't copy Monster Hunter's combat. Over the last decade or so, everybody and their grandmother have tried to copy Dark Souls combat, and with good reason. Very few games have tried to copy Monster Hunter combat, despite the fact that it is the gold standard for fighting gargantuan beasts IMHO. One of the few games that did copy Monster Hunter was the original Dragon's Dogma, I believe some of them worked on Monster Hunter previously, so it makes sense. Anyway, this game looks ****ing awesome. 

Edited March 3 by Keyrock

[Hawke64]

3 hours ago, Keyrock said:

Dragon's Dogma 2 is less than a month away.

I've long been puzzled as to why more games don't copy Monster Hunter's combat. Over the last decade or so, everybody and their grandmother have tried to copy Dark Souls combat, and with good reason. Very few games have tried to copy Monster Hunter combat, despite the fact that it is the gold standard for fighting gargantuan beasts IMHO. One of the few games that did copy Monster Hunter was the original Dragon's Dogma, I believe some of them worked on Monster Hunter previously, so it makes sense. Anyway, this game looks ****ing awesome. 

Looking forward to DD2. From what I remember, MH combat was significantly slower and less responsive, while there also were fewer readable indicators of how well it was going (e.g. monster's HP bar) and the encounter design was not particularly fun (e.g. chasing the monster after injuring). The companion cats were cool, though. Can't recall if they could launch you on the monster, like fighter Pawns do.

[Keyrock]

2 minutes ago, Hawke64 said:

and the encounter design was not particularly fun (e.g. chasing the monster after injuring).

I disagree, I love that part of Monster Hunter, which is interesting since I don't normally like prolonged boss battles, but I love Monster Hunter's prolonged boss battles precisely because of this. I like having to chase the monster down after they flee when you get them significantly injured. I like the tracking part before the battle too. Dragon's Dogma didn't copy those parts, though, just the actual combat where characters can try to climb onto giant monsters in an effort to stab a vital spot. It's not exactly the same, of course.

Either way, hopefully DD2 winds up being as good as it looks, because it looks pretty awesome.

[xzar_monty]

On 3/1/2024 at 4:00 PM, Hurlshort said:

We are basically in the golden age of gaming right now. Any type of game you could possibly want is probably in development by some indie studio, and they have the tools to make it look and play great.

Story-heavy fantasy role-playing game where turn-based combat is not obligatory (i.e. something in the vein of BG(2), PoE, Deadfire, P:K, P:WotR). Anyone developing any anywhere?

[Hurlshort]

3 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Story-heavy fantasy role-playing game where turn-based combat is not obligatory (i.e. something in the vein of BG(2), PoE, Deadfire, P:K, P:WotR). Anyone developing any anywhere?

Are you joking.

That period is on purpose.

[xzar_monty]

Just now, Hurlshort said:

Are you joking.

Why would I be joking? Why wouldn't it be a serious question?

[Hurlshort]

Just now, xzar_monty said:

Why would I be joking? Why wouldn't it be a serious question?

Four of your example games came out recently, so it seemed like you were being facetious. That being said, we aren't lacking in games that fit your criteria.