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The Death of Immersive Sims?

ore clover

Learned
Joined
Mar 25, 2017
Messages
171
No it was Square Enix with their moronic decisions to develop breach and stuff it with microtransactions and shitty preorder DLCs that did it, but the point stands - those microtransactions did not affect the game itself in any way. And if someone wants more DX games (even compromised ones from Eidos) but refuses to buy them, well then tough shit, not gonna happen.
Eh, was that you? Just how many codexers contribute to RPS's comments?

I'm not sure I agree with the sentiment. If someone wants more Deus Ex games, but doesn't like the way they're being handled by Eidos, buying the new ones won't really help their situation. Squeenix will just see good sales, and mark it off as a successfull formula.

Maybe it's an unfair comparison, but here goes: If I want a game like the first couple Fallouts, buying the newest titles in the franchise isn't going to bring them back. Quite the opposite, more likely.

Sure, low sales may kill a game franchise. However, if it's moved on in a directon that part of the fanbase doesn't like, I won't get on their case just to keep the corpse on life support.
 

Paul_cz

Arcane
Joined
Jan 26, 2014
Messages
1,996
No it was Square Enix with their moronic decisions to develop breach and stuff it with microtransactions and shitty preorder DLCs that did it, but the point stands - those microtransactions did not affect the game itself in any way. And if someone wants more DX games (even compromised ones from Eidos) but refuses to buy them, well then tough shit, not gonna happen.
Eh, was that you? Just how many codexers contribute to RPS's comments?

I'm not sure I agree with the sentiment. If someone wants more Deus Ex games, but doesn't like the way they're being handled by Eidos, buying the new ones won't really help their situation. Squeenix will just see good sales, and mark it off as a successfull formula.

Maybe it's an unfair comparison, but here goes: If I want a game like the first couple Fallouts, buying the newest titles in the franchise isn't going to bring them back. Quite the opposite, more likely.

Sure, low sales may kill a game franchise. However, if it's moved on in a directon that part of the fanbase doesn't like, I won't get on their case just to keep the corpse on life support.

Eh, we mostly agree. But in the case of that RPS post, the guy striked me as someone who would enjoy DX from Eidos and wanted to buy it, and only boycotted it because of the microtransactions. And I would agree with him, IF the microtransactions in that game were in any way harmful. But...they weren't. The game itself (not the shitty Breach mode) was designed in a way where they were completely useless. I didn't even know they were there until after I finished it.
As a general point microtransactions and preorder DLCs and whatnot are bullshit for sure though. But sadly publishers will always try to squeeze some extra money. At least in case of DXMD, experience of playing it itself was intact however.
 

Athos

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2014
Messages
838
Location
Italy
Beggars can't be choosers. What others non-Bethesda, open world, sandbox style RPG did the consoles have back then?

Bethesda carved itself a nice niche nearly all to themselves, but I don't believe anyone expected it to get as large as it did. Additionally, attempts to move into that niche by other devs haven't been as successful. Assuming a smooth launch, Kingdom Come: Deliverance will certainly have its fans, but a Bethesda-level success is extremely unlikely.

Back when we still used to talk, Brother None would sometimes talk to me about how Bethesda were the gaming industry's UNPARALLELED MASTERS OF MARKETING. Never bought it. I think they basically just got lucky. Occupied the right niche at the right time (and with the right technology to make their games on the cheap).
That's true but, if you remember the year before it came out, Skyrim did a great job with the hype machine. They managed to sweep quietly under the rug the initial boastful marketing bullshit (dynamic snow, dynamic economy, radiant crap anc reactivity, when in fact the game is less "innovative" than Fallout 3) while keeping the expectations high and the customers hypnotized. They basically created a cult before the game come out by pushing the brand in the mainstream consciousness as hard as possible.
 
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Alienman

Retro-Fascist
Patron
Joined
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Messages
17,046
Location
Mars
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Back when we still used to talk, Brother None would sometimes talk to me about how Bethesda were the gaming industry's UNPARALLELED MASTERS OF MARKETING. Never bought it. I think they basically just got lucky. Occupied the right niche at the right time (and with the right technology to make their games on the cheap).

Yeah, a studio so insecure that it blacklists fan sites over critical reviews (that Star Trek board, us) and sends C&Ds to small devs over trademark disputes doesn't come across to me as "masters of marketing."

Then there was their relatively-recent disaster with the Fallout 4 launch party, where they invited a bunch of non-game playing LA trash who were openly disgusted with the decor, much to the discomfort of the actual game developers who were also attending.

Is there a video of this? :)
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
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Messages
35,656
Is there a video of this? :)
https://www.google.com/search?q=fal...f-8&oe=utf-8#q=fallout+4+launch+party&tbm=vid

I doubt the true comedy was preserved for posterity though.
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CTRvv0DUEAAj2Vi.png:orig
 

28.8bps Modem

Prophet
Joined
Jan 15, 2014
Messages
302
Location
The Internet, Circa 1993
It's probably too late for that.
People have gotten used to "improving" graphical quality. If any AAA studio tries it, they will be drowned into screams of "OMG it's 2007 again" from certain and loud portion of consumers.

It's probably not too late for consumers, but so many of the developers are now in the hands of gigantic publishers for whom making a game for 4 million bucks and making a 100% or 200% return on that money is so much chump change that the shareholders would tear them a new one.

Every single studio they own is basically scooping their entire existence on to red in the marketing roulette wheel with every game. Either they win big and get to spin the wheel one more time or they bust and the publisher buries them. The only exception to the rule are god awful F2P mobile games for which every big publisher owns at least one studio. It's a lethally toxic environment for anyone who wants to make a career of publishing games, and it's bad for the consumer as it encourages endless "safe" sequels and the Ubisoft/Rockstar monogame culture.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
BTW, i forgot to mention that the reason the media reaction to Oblivion stood out so much to me is that the game looked so bad. That was one of my first WTF moments with the media. Everybody was giving this game like perfect scores and shit but the game looked like utter trash.
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,184
Location
Bjørgvin
Lots of kids nowadays only play one game, a MOBA and they do it all day, because of the social aspect. They could care less about immersive sims.

You have obviously not seen the light.
It looked good enough when you turn off Bloom and HDR.
 

duke nukem

Augur
Joined
Oct 20, 2013
Messages
207
Reason why Deus Ex mankind divided was doing so poorly, it was because shitty pre-order policy made people boycott and trailer was poorly done. Because of those two reasons even i refused buy it until last week when i got it 10 euros. Good game actually and only one problem is that mouse movement is weird and very heavy processor requirement, it puts my 2500k processor to its knees. Trailer did not give real justice for the game as Jensen was more like Rambo instead of using stealth and that "teleport" spell was stupid.
Related discussion on Reddit:

This guy's posts are pretty depressing: https://www.reddit.com/user/epeternally

You either have to accept games that appeal to mainstream tastes, which means accessibility is paramount, or you have to accept games with smaller scopes, lower production values, and less polish (and be willing to pay more for them). Those are the only options. Contrary to your remark about CEO's going to the Bahamas, AAA games are an extremely high risk business. With 150 million dollar budgets and a fairly fixed base of extremely fickle customers, big companies can't afford to take risks.

We created this market by demanding bigger games with better graphics, by begging for a Mirror's Edge sequel and then letting it bomb, by elevating trivial issues like the facial animations in Mass Effect to comically out of proportion levels. If we want these companies to feel comfortable taking more risks, we need to dramatically change our behavior as consumers to make that viable. We need to accept less and be willing to pay more for it or we won't get niche games. Massive photorealistic open world games shouldn't be $60 when Chrono Trigger launched for $100 (which is $160 in today's money).
That is complete bullshit. There is only one game what development budget was 147 million dollars and that was gta 5, Witcher 3 :46 million, modern warfare 2: 50 million, final fantasy VII: 45 million, Heavy Rain 23 million.

Those are really cheap prices and in movie budgets those would be counted as b-movies, except gta 5 what has similar budget that big movies like frozen(150 million).

Yet, you can buy those movies blu-ray movie at 10 euros. So movies has bigger budgets, yet 6 times cheaper prices and they do not cut content to dlc like games do.

Games are just simply too expensive and if they would cost less they would sell way more. Rocket league costs only 20 euros and it is small budget game, yet it sold 30+ million. 30 million*20 dollar= 500 000 000 dollars. So half billion. Even it is just simple game, but because of lower price it sells. Same way DayZ dominated steam as most sold games list for more than half year, because it had low price, it was less than 20 euros and moment they increased price, their sales dropped completely and they are never in top 10 anymore.

Global offensive is cheap and it is continuously top 10 and so on...

If system shock ripoff prey would cost 20 euros, it would sell like hot cakes and sequel would be confirmed already, but no..why anyone would buy it for 60 euros except retards? Even 30 euro was bit too much for me. Thank god for cdkeys site. Only game that i am ready to buy at full price is cp2077 and that is drm free gog version.
 

28.8bps Modem

Prophet
Joined
Jan 15, 2014
Messages
302
Location
The Internet, Circa 1993
Games are just simply too expensive and if they would cost less they would sell way more. Rocket league costs only 20 euros and it is small budget game, yet it sold 30+ million. 30 million*20 dollar= 500 000 000 dollars. So half billion. Even it is just simple game, but because of lower price it sells. Same way DayZ dominated steam as most sold games list for more than half year, because it had low price, it was less than 20 euros and moment they increased price, their sales dropped completely and they are never in top 10 anymore.

Global offensive is cheap and it is continuously top 10 and so on...

If system shock ripoff prey would cost 20 euros, it would sell like hot cakes and sequel would be confirmed already, but no..why anyone would buy it for 60 euros except retards? Even 30 euro was bit too much for me. Thank god for cdkeys site. Only game that i am ready to buy at full price is cp2077 and that is drm free gog version.

Bollocks.

Didn't you notice that all those games you listed were multiplayer only games that spread socially rather than through direct marketing? It's a completely different kettle of fish from big single player focused releases that have a short shelf life and rely on traditional marketing to get themselves in front of consumer eyes.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Bollocks.

Didn't you notice that all those games you listed were multiplayer only games that spread socially rather than through direct marketing? It's a completely different kettle of fish from big single player focused releases that have a short shelf life and rely on traditional marketing to get themselves in front of consumer eyes.

Decent chance Arkane's next game will be forced to have multiplayer.
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,952
Every forest needs the occasional fire and video games last good one predates your average Codex poster.

There's a lot of dry, dead wood that needs to be cleared out and that means this ages end. The last thing needed is to cling on by our finger nails and watch things fall apart anymore than they have.

Let it burn so we can get through the pain as quickly as possible.
 
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Gepeu

Savant
Patron
Joined
Oct 16, 2016
Messages
986
What pain? Nothing will happen to anyone, it won't be, like, an actual global famine crisis or the third world war. We're talking about video games.
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,952
What pain?

The pain from RPS and the industries perspective is all the bad old times from the 80s coming back. It will hurt the industry, but the industry needs to be hurt to get some sense knocked into it and shape up like it did last time.

We live though in the age of Too Big to Fail where people want to avoid the necessary aspects of fail to keep pushing through into a sclerotic future or marginal grow and zero innovation.
 

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,662
A lot of these games had problems outside the gameplay.

Hitman: episodic DLC-type drip-drip content? Go fuck yourself.

Deux Ex: DLC out the ass. Go fakk urself. Also a sequel.

Dishonoured 2: Gltiches on release. G'fkurslf. Also a sequel.

Some post mentioned Mirror's Edge 2: sequel. Not even a full-priced level of game to begin with unless you're really into doing timed runs or something. Which if you are, gfy.

Sequels are dangerous material, whether for indies or AAA's.


Anyway, Prey is fucking amazing. Best FPS I've played in many years.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
A lot of these games had problems outside the gameplay.

Hitman: episodic DLC-type drip-drip content? Go fuck yourself.

Deux Ex: DLC out the ass. Go fakk urself. Also a sequel.

Dishonoured 2: Gltiches on release. G'fkurslf. Also a sequel.

Some post mentioned Mirror's Edge 2: sequel. Not even a full-priced level of game to begin with unless you're really into doing timed runs or something. Which if you are, gfy.

Sequels are dangerous material, whether for indies or AAA's.


Anyway, Prey is fucking amazing. Best FPS I've played in many years.

I think his problem is that it seems like when people "GFY" one of these games that causes them to fail, whereas say, Fallout 4 has enough of an audience that it can sustain a GFY and still sell twenty zillion copies. It's not fair!
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
Those are really cheap prices and in movie budgets those would be counted as b-movies, except gta 5 what has similar budget that big movies like frozen(150 million).

Yet, you can buy those movies blu-ray movie at 10 euros. So movies has bigger budgets, yet 6 times cheaper prices and they do not cut content to dlc like games do.

Games are just simply too expensive and if they would cost less they would sell way more. Rocket league costs only 20 euros and it is small budget game, yet it sold 30+ million.

Movies however have a much bigger market than games. A successful movie will have hundreds of millions of viewers in cinema. And then be sold on DVD/Bluray again, and/or through streaming and TV. In other words: people potentially pay multiple times for the consumption of the same movie.
For games? Yeah, you have PC and consoles. And if someone owns the game once he will hardly buy again.

However, given the way AAA games in particular are marketed today, paying full prize makes little sense most of the time. Better to wait a couple of months and pay less for the complete game with all the DLC and with most of the bugs fixed.
 
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FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,656
Is this happening with every Bethesduh release or what? I remember a similar thing for Fallout 3 with some guy posting stuff like this to the point that I'm thinking this is edited to say Fallout 4 instead of 3.

You're probably just misremembering. Bethesda didn't have the budget to hire Calvin Harris to perform or the clout to invite a bunch of Hollywood celebs to one of their events until after Skyrim's massive success.

Edit: Apparently I'm wrong?

https://www.engadget.com/2008/10/11/the-incredibly-strange-and-delightful-fallout-3-launch-party/

Bethesda is throwing a radiation-hot launch party for Fallout 3 next Saturday in Los Angeles, complete with even more Vault Boy retro graphics. The party features headline music by the Foo Fighters, and it's hosted by Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Odette Yustman, Ben Harper, and it's being co-hosted by the Bethesda / Zenimax board of directors, which includes bigwig producer Jerry Bruckheimer, bigwig CBS president Les Moonves, bigwig MGM president Harry Sloan and and bigwig baseballer Cal Ripken, Jr.

Guess they're not learning animals. Hope they enjoy getting bullied by chads and stacies again next time around.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
The future for popamole games is multiplayer, for he same price of a single player game, you can milk cows fow way longer with microtransactions generating an stable revenue stream instead of trusting 100% on sales.
 

pippin

Guest
when max landis thinks you're trying too hard then you are fucked

also he did a similar rant about sjw in comics, it's kinda hilarious, because he had rainbow hair while saying it
 

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