RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS

[HoonDing]

Ever played Darkstar One?

That game was exactly that.

[Tale]

Ever played Darkstar One?

 

That game was exactly that.

I played the demo for Darkstar One. And uninstalled it in disgust after I realized that leveling made the enemies harder.

[majestic]

There is some new MoO but for some reason it seems shallow. They even get rid of best part of MoO2 - single tech in branch - it was cool that some races got access to completely different tech.

 

Yeah, maybe. As if anyone ever played without the creative racial pick.

[Darkpriest]

Yeah i always played Psilon or some custom race with the "creative" perk, as it was too limiting otherwise.

 

They have a bit of that though, as some techs you can get only 1 of 2 or 3 choices, and if you want to rest of that tech tree you need to trade for it or steal it

Edited April 2, 2016 by Darkpriest

[Oner]

I was told only beginners used Creative.

[Malcador]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-04-02-mass-effect-andromeda-early-gameplay-footage-leaks

 

Some ME:A stuff

[Oerwinde]

Watching World War Wednesday and Extraterrestrial Thursday Paradox streams and I am so psyched for both Stellaris and Hearts of Iron IV. Hopefully the IPO thats supposedly happening later this year doesn't change Paradox too much, because they are easily my favorite publisher.

[Zoraptor]

Paradox?

 

Oh, that's right. What EA Arctic used to be known as. Shame Dragon Age Kings and Star Wars Universalis failed so spectacularly or they'd still be around. I was quite looking forward to Hearts of Battlefield, too. And that WoD game with Obsidian, shame the first thing EA did back in 2018 was shut that idea down. Funny how everyone suddenly started seriously complaining about their terrible dlc policies and platform exclusivity once EA bought them and their titles got made Origin instead of Steam exclusive...

 

(2018 might be a little soon)

Edited April 2, 2016 by Zoraptor

[Oerwinde]

How often does EA buy rival publishers? I know their track record for killing developers, but don't remember them buying out publishers. Paradox said the IPO will still leave the private owners with the controlling share, so shareholders shouldn't have too much leverage. Kinda like how WWE has sharehokders but Vince still controls everything

Edited April 2, 2016 by Oerwinde

[Rosbjerg]

I think he means they are turning into an EA equivalent.

[Zoraptor]

Nah, only the last part means that. Doesn't have to be EA anyway, they can just be guaranteed to get knees jerking.

 

When Elevation Partners came on board with Bioware, Bioware said pretty much exactly what Paradox is now saying. Nothing practical will change, we'll just have lots of lovely moolah to spend, no strings attached. As if there is ever truly no strings attached. Two years later, they were owned by EA.

 

Publishers buy up other publishers, uh, pretty frequently. Not that long ago EA was going to buy Ubisoft and only got blocked by the French government, IIRC last publisher they bought was Popcap, their financial situation has precluded anything else recently. To illustrate: Activision is three publishers (except Blizzard each bought other publishers prior as well) that are merged- Activision, Vivendi (game publishing arm), Blizzard. Zombie Atari is three as well (Infogrammes, GT Interactive and one other whose name escapes me- Hasbro's video game arm), Ubisoft has bought bits of or wholesale Blue Byte, 3DO and multiple others, Square Enix is three amalgamated publishers (Square, Enix, Eidos) plus others, Take 2 is 2k and Rockstar merged etc.

 

Paradox is an uncomfortable size and has rather a lot of flops and cancelled projects, balanced by the occasional break out hit like Magicka or Cities: Skylines. Whatever they say if they can't make a decent return and someone is offering money to buy them they'll get plenty of pressure from shareholders to sell out.

[Darkpriest]

I was told only beginners used Creative.

 

Depends, if you want to play vs AI or you are an MP beast. Creative costs points which can be spent eslewhere and you use those points for expansion / production related traits while focus research only on key techs (you do not need all buildings, weapons etc.)

[Malcador]

[majestic]

I was told only beginners used Creative.

 

The real beginner's trait is Charismatic.

[Oerwinde]

Nah, only the last part means that. Doesn't have to be EA anyway, they can just be guaranteed to get knees jerking.

 

When Elevation Partners came on board with Bioware, Bioware said pretty much exactly what Paradox is now saying. Nothing practical will change, we'll just have lots of lovely moolah to spend, no strings attached. As if there is ever truly no strings attached. Two years later, they were owned by EA.

 

Publishers buy up other publishers, uh, pretty frequently. Not that long ago EA was going to buy Ubisoft and only got blocked by the French government, IIRC last publisher they bought was Popcap, their financial situation has precluded anything else recently. To illustrate: Activision is three publishers (except Blizzard each bought other publishers prior as well) that are merged- Activision, Vivendi (game publishing arm), Blizzard. Zombie Atari is three as well (Infogrammes, GT Interactive and one other whose name escapes me- Hasbro's video game arm), Ubisoft has bought bits of or wholesale Blue Byte, 3DO and multiple others, Square Enix is three amalgamated publishers (Square, Enix, Eidos) plus others, Take 2 is 2k and Rockstar merged etc.

 

Paradox is an uncomfortable size and has rather a lot of flops and cancelled projects, balanced by the occasional break out hit like Magicka or Cities: Skylines. Whatever they say if they can't make a decent return and someone is offering money to buy them they'll get plenty of pressure from shareholders to sell out.

 

I know they made a big deal this year about what good shape they are in. CK2 and EU4 have been big successes, and have a very high DLC attachment rate (something like 60% of game owners buy the DLC), plus Cities Skylines and Pillars of Eternity did really well for them. They doubled down on QA for Paradox Development Studio which made EU4 and CK2 extremely polished games and allowed their reputation to turn around from the buggy messes their older stuff was. Hopefully that QA can work the same magic for Obsidian with Tyranny.

[Zoraptor]

Their technical aspect QA has certainly improved immeasurably. But they still tend to break the balancing when patching or releasing dlc, and it often isn't fixed.

 

The real question is why Paradox would go public if things are going so well as they are now. It's so they can get more money; and there's no way the people who are giving them the money won't want to both make a profit on their investment and have a say. And that's without a Chris Avellone type situation where one of the private shareholders (Johan or Fredrick, say) wants to leave, they've both been there over a decade much as MCA was with Obsidian.

[Oerwinde]

Their technical aspect QA has certainly improved immeasurably. But they still tend to break the balancing when patching or releasing dlc, and it often isn't fixed.

 

The real question is why Paradox would go public if things are going so well as they are now. It's so they can get more money; and there's no way the people who are giving them the money won't want to both make a profit on their investment and have a say. And that's without a Chris Avellone type situation where one of the private shareholders (Johan or Fredrick, say) wants to leave, they've both been there over a decade much as MCA was with Obsidian.

I think with the purchase of white wolf and all their successes they are looking to expand. I know they have shown an interest into expanding into mobile, which I doubt their current staff has a lot of interest or experience in developing for.

[Mamoulian War]

An article on about how much damn does Valve give about their Steam security :D

 

http://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2016/04/steam-hacker-more-vulnerabilities/

 

 

"It looks like their website hasn't been updated for years," Nealon told Ars. "Compared to even other smaller Web startups, they're really lacking. This stuff was like the lowest of the lowest hanging fruit."

[Mamoulian War]

And full story about one of the vulnerabilities.

 

http://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2016/03/valve-steam-hacker-watch-paint-dry/

 

To bad, he did not put "Half-Life 3" for sale. I would love to see that ****storm happen :D

[Darkpriest]

Their technical aspect QA has certainly improved immeasurably. But they still tend to break the balancing when patching or releasing dlc, and it often isn't fixed.

 

The real question is why Paradox would go public if things are going so well as they are now. It's so they can get more money; and there's no way the people who are giving them the money won't want to both make a profit on their investment and have a say. And that's without a Chris Avellone type situation where one of the private shareholders (Johan or Fredrick, say) wants to leave, they've both been there over a decade much as MCA was with Obsidian.

 

Well going public gives extra cash inflow, BUT it comes at a price of having to meet various budgets and growth in EBITDA, and that means pressure on revenue line and pressure on the cost of sales - i.e. they might need to create some more games with wider appeal.

[Zoraptor]

As Oerwinde mentioned, they're going mobile which theoretically broadens their market but would require additional costs. It's one of the reasons why I'm so sceptical about the float, plenty of companies have floundered going for money in mobile gaming and it's a crapshoot as to what succeeds; and Paradox's existing fan base is largely hostile to the mere idea of mobile gaming. That and more console gaming too and they seem to be moving away from what an MBA would no doubt call their core competencies. Which is fine, but gaming history is littered with the corpses of those who tried that and failed.

[Malcador]

Edited April 3, 2016 by Malcador

[Agiel]

That episode "Proposition Infinity" from Futurama, anybody?

Edited April 4, 2016 by Agiel

[Lexx]

I really hate how Blizzard has become all about comic graphics.

[apolloooo]

MOBA, MMO, and all those online fanchy smanchy has ruined RTS. blizzard was one of the best RTS developer out there, great mechanics, strong campaign with one of the best writing in the industry, it's now this repetitive online ****