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

[melkathi]

<disclaimer> I am not a lawyer </disclaimer>

To me it is a bit like the different approach to garbage in different countries.

In Germany, you pay for your garbage weight allowance. It is your garbage. You have your own bin. You have a padlock on the bin so no neighbour can sneak their garbage into yours and have you pay for it.

In Greece, you do not have your own bin. You dump the garbage (ideally) in the city's garbage bins. You pay the city tax based on the square meters of your home, and the amount of actual garbage you produce is irrelevant.

As a result though in Germany, throwing something in the garbage does not automatically relinquish ownership. In Greece it does.

Taking this to gaming, does a permanent shut down of servers allow for the argument the company is relinquishing it's financial interests in the specific title and therefor a non-profit, community run server or a community coded removal of the always online system should be allowed?

 

[Zoraptor]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

In other words if there is  an online gaming service that is losing money is the legislation going to say " you cant shutdown the gaming servers " ?

End of the day, if you enter into a contract in any other field and find you're losing money you can't arbitrarily decide to cancel the contract, with no consequences. If your options are literally literally shutting down a server or going bankrupt... your company is figuratively literally in the crapper already. Otherwise you're just trying to dodge obligations that you don't think you should fulfill because now they're costing you money- and often trying to get people to buy [sportsgame_currentyear] instead of playing [sportsgame_currentyear--] they'd otherwise be perfectly happy with.

Software companies have got away with a load of crap you wouldn't get away with if you were selling sandwiches, beds, cars or even service contracts like catering or cleaning just because it's software. So your Suicide Squad game released 3 months ago as a GaaS and sold appallingly? Tough noogies, that's the risk you take as a company, Warners. It costs you money to run the servers for the 27 people playing it you say? That's the risk you take. You can tell how hard up WBD is, Dave Zaslav only took home 300mn in pay and stock options over the past three years, wonder how many servers even 1% of that would keep running...

[yes, I know it isn't shut down, yet]

Edited May 7 by Zoraptor

[Mamoulian War]

5 hours ago, BruceVC said:

 

Specifically around what they mean by " When these are shut down, games can be left unplayable" 

 

Heroes of Might and Magic 6 comes to me immediately as a first example, of what they are talking about

[Azdeus]

2 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Heroes of Might and Magic 6 comes to me immediately as a first example, of what they are talking about

The debacle around The Crew comes to mind.

Also, might aswell drop this; https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

Short version

Long version;

Spoiler

 

 

[mkreku]

Xbox shuts down a bunch of game studios: https://www.eurogamer.net/xbox-shuts-slew-of-bethesda-studios-including-redfall-hi-fi-rush-developers

So.. how long do you think Obsidian and inXile will last? Not exactly the cashcows Microsofts shareholders demand from them..

[Sven_]

MS going to close down Tango Softworks and Arkane Austin TX.

WolfEye have set up their first ever offices in Austin TX just last year. That's the new studio by Arkane's founder Raf Colantonio, which already has quite an illustrious roster for people familiar. Any bets accepted there's more ex-Arkanes going to pop up in there? Every ending is a new beginning.

Also, before anybody speculates: The dichotomy between Austin and Lyon has never existed like that. Arkane have never been a company of two studios. Rather a studio of two locations, with people moving between them as well (see Harvey Smith moving over to Lyon to direct Dishonored 2 and then going back). That's firstly a misconception that Colantonio himself has corrected multiple times. 

 Secondly, if Lyon weren't working on a rather popular IP as we speak (Blade), I could imagine MS pulling the plug on them too. If Blade is gonna bomb... edit: Dang, @mkreku beat me to it. 

Edited May 7 by Sven_

[Hurlshort]

37 minutes ago, mkreku said:

Xbox shuts down a bunch of game studios: https://www.eurogamer.net/xbox-shuts-slew-of-bethesda-studios-including-redfall-hi-fi-rush-developers

So.. how long do you think Obsidian and inXile will last? Not exactly the cashcows Microsofts shareholders demand from them..

This is probably wishful thinking, but Microsoft probably bought Bethesda for the Bethesda, not necessarily all of the other developer's Bethesda owned. They wanted the big IP's that Bethesda has.

Obsidian and inXile are separate deals. It looks a lot worse if they go in and shutter them. But yeah, if Avowed or Outer Worlds 2 doesn't hit sales expectations, it could be very bad. So make sure to buy a copy and leave it running all day long to help them out.  

[Chilloutman]

Sorry Obs, but I am not really interested in first person games so until we get another TTRPG from you no money from me

[Sven_]

If Obsidian eventually gets shut down too at some point, I'm hoping for somebody to mod the **** out of The Outer Worlds. 

We've shut down the best. Now try the rest.
At Microsoft, we cut corners so you don't have to.
Who, who, whoa, it's Spencer's!

Edited May 7 by Sven_

[HoonDing]

You have to be realistic about these things.

[melkathi]

The reality is, people being realistic about things is the reason we can't have nice things

[Wormerine]

4 hours ago, mkreku said:

Xbox shuts down a bunch of game studios: https://www.eurogamer.net/xbox-shuts-slew-of-bethesda-studios-including-redfall-hi-fi-rush-developers

So.. how long do you think Obsidian and inXile will last? Not exactly the cashcows Microsofts shareholders demand from them..

Ouch.

Austin Texas being shut down is not surprising - I would mourn it as they create one of my fav game out of Arcanes output (Prey!), but allegiedly Redfall already drove most of that team away. Tango Gameworks though.... that's surprising. Hi-Fi Rush was the best thing XBOX released so far. Unless a lot of developers went after Shinji Makami when he left the studio, or something.

Well, Grounded has been doing shockingly well, and Pentiment was super low budget. We will see how Avowed and Outer Worlds2 will do (not feeling great about Avowed so far...!).

[Sven_]

2 hours ago, HoonDing said:

You have to be realistic about these things.

I'll bite. 

Avowed underperforming = realistic.
The Outer Worlds 2 doing the same = realistic.

Obsidian being turned into Bethsoft junior / Fallout game factory liners = a possibilty. At least they'd be working on an IP they like, hey. 

In particular considering how freakishly long it takes to churn out these games these days -- and that delivering BIG IP blockbuster product corporations care about becomes slower and slower a process. Who was Football World Champion back when the last Dragon Age released? On which console did the last GTA game first release? When did the last Elder Scrolls main game come out, discounting re-releases? Does anybody even remember the last Mass Effect, for that matter?  If you can positively answer these, chances are, you're a pretty old fart.   

Edited May 7 by Sven_

[Zoraptor]

4 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

This is probably wishful thinking, but Microsoft probably bought Bethesda for the Bethesda, not necessarily all of the other developer's Bethesda owned.

Long history of this happening.

Recent example: Embracer. Older example: EA's Bioware deal also included Pandemic Studios, which they obviously wouldn't have bought if it wasn't a bundle deal since they closed it down in the first major round of layoffs post acquisition.

[Hurlshort]

51 minutes ago, Sven_ said:

I'll bite. 

Avowed underperforming = realistic.
The Outer Worlds 2 doing the same = realistic.

Obsidian being turned into Bethsoft junior / Fallout game factory liners = a possibilty. At least they'd be working on an IP they like, hey. 
 

Heh, kind of an interesting theory to think that if Obsidian struggles to make it with their own IP's, they will just end up churning out Fallout side games. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'd feel bad for Obsidian, but I would love to have more of their Fallouts too. 

Problem is they would probably lose their writing talent that separates them from the chuff. Tim Cain already seems to be semi-retired as he develops his youtube following.

[Gorth]

Random interruption of gaming news... continued here