Those are the companies that have contributed to the fast churn of creatives getting overworked and leaving the industry, leaving their projects to be driven entirely by excess man-hours and lack of innovation.

Man I’m still trying to get one part for a gun that only spawns in a certain kind of weekly mission.

I log on, see that mission isn’t available, log off. Such engage, much gameplay.

If this helps the flame train derail a bit:

Most Source engine game trailers, like Half-Life 2, are “pre-rendered”. If you record a sequence of gameplay as a “demo” (kb-level file that records player movement in a level) then you can record that demo into a video at a much slower rate than the gameplay, capturing every frame; as well as add camera motions to it. There are guides for individuals to do this using the “startmovie” command.

It’s just a logical way to ensure the video is seamlessly presented, especially since framerate optimization comes late in development.

I’ve pretty much abandoned Xbox over this issue, and I’ve been an apologist for them for a lot of things.

• For anyone done buying discs, it’s a removed point of failure in the device. The Series S sold well, so if your point is “No one wants a digital console”, then no, you are wrong.
• People wanted more storage in existing models
• For a lot of people, the $100 difference between models is a heavy consideration. Anything that can get trimmed out may make them more likely to buy.

If they add any patches, then Series S owners won’t be able to install it at all, much less own any other games.

Some things to say back to this:

Most people now have the console they prefer, and it’s lasting them. They don’t necessarily need new consoles. This is true EVEN if that console is a PS4, Xbox One, or Switch. They don’t get everything, but a surprising number of major releases still come to all those destinations.

It’s still nicely convenient to have consoles for less setup and configuration. Some people manage really complex problems for their work and home projects already - a desktop computer may be beyond their tolerance.

I do not enjoy Soulslikes, but I really liked Tunic. Some things it has going for it:

• It is extremely nonverbal, but what it does give you is invested in helping you figure out a path to success. By intention, that’s not always obvious. You may need to work out for yourself when to dodge or to block.
• The atmosphere is bright and cheery, though it has its spooky and atmospheric bits.
• The camera is top down, so you don’t need to manage the camera while playing.
• Dying is not very punishing. You lose a bit of currency, which you can retain at the same spot; and that currency isn’t often critical to progress

What’s hard for some is easy for others, and vice versa. There’s definitely an appropriate level of intended challenge to any Soulslike game that makes it satisfying as you gradually overcome difficulties and adversity. Fall below that, for instance by spending 10 hours on the tutorial boss, OR breach that difficulty by never falling below 50% HP, and the experience loses luster.

No matter how much equipment is in it, Dark Souls is still on a pretty set level of difficulty, and it’s too high for a lot of people. Heck, there are other casual games out there that were “ultra hard” for some infrequent gamers I know.

I’m a little surprised it’s that low. I mean, considering their cloud and hardware divisions they’d be getting, shouldn’t Valve pay a bit more than $16m to buy Microsoft?

Whatever you think of Nintendo, it’s not encouraging that Google could end up being responsible for a leak of something put up on YouTube privately.

The most agonizing debate is one you agree with, but not nearly to the extreme degree of the position you’re responding to.

There are some nuts out there that literally only buy a certain gun because “it’s in Call of Duty and it’s cool.” Worse, this demographic are not likely to be responsible gun owners - they are not buying for any perceived need. They don’t lock their guns correctly, or keep ammo separate. Those guns are the type most likely to be stolen for use in a mass shooting (or used by their owners). Arguably, those guns are designed to appeal to this exact crowd, not serve as a functional tool or hobby item.

That said, there are much better targets for gun legislation than “scary looking black guns” or Call of Duty’s choice of theme.

I had a lot of fun with my Vita even without hacking it. It had a longer lifetime than people realize, in part through digital sales and indie games that were planning to do PS3/PS4 releases anyway.

Most people would be fine with this in the case of a home user duplicating one or two copies for his kids to watch and as backups. But we have seen whenever a rule permits something, someone will work out the MAXIMUM way in which they can abuse it for profit. Give them an inch, and they take a mile.

Ideally, we could have laws that are really finely built to be specific to that first scenario. But I honestly don’t know how you write those.

Even if I side with the community on the turnout, I feel like a community manager’s job is to represent the company’s interests to some degree. Kind of like a defense lawyer.

They shouldn’t go as far as lying to people or making bad promises, which can make it a tough job, but they definitely shouldn’t be siding with the players against the company, or the internal employees are catching flak from both sides.

It’s like an administrator/tenant relationship. Generally, the publisher controls the region locks, but if the publisher starts doing something potentially illegal or brand-damaging, like selling a bricked game, the store owner can also manipulate the locks.

If they couldn’t, a dev’s efforts to willingly commit brand suicide by releasing a game that bricks people’s computers (not beyond the pale given how stupid publishers are now) would also take Steam down with them.

This is an excellent explanation of why the layoffs were a terrible idea.

I wouldn’t have volunteered $30-$40 for Hi-Fi Rush on release because of my low budget for new singleplayer games - but I did play it through Game Pass, and knowing how good it is now I would’ve paid more. Similarly, MS has put out many “mixed” games that are perfect for certain types of people but not many others. Those are the things that keep people on Game Pass. Nobody needs to be paying $100 a year to keep playing the few familiar live service games they know.

The “unsubscribe” button is really easy to reach the month Game Pass stops putting out anything new and interesting, and that’s coming soon now that they have no one ready to put out these surprise hits.

For what? They can’t even use a lot of these IPs anymore. Fallout is now associated with 76 unless you’re thinking of Obsidian. Bethesda as a whole is not trusted for big RPGs after Starfield. Blizzard is a shell of its old self, cutting interest in Warcraft, Starcraft, and Overwatch. Id has been doing okay, but has had a lot of brain drain, and they definitely don’t produce the “live service hits” MS appears to be looking for - just things people would love to see on Game Pass and discard. There’s rumors even Call of Duty is struggling to retain relevance in new releases.

…We about to see Crash vs Spyro Autobattle Royale?

They are announcing that they are ready to announce the announcing of a future announcement of further announcements.

The biggest stumble seems to be from releasing without the requirement initially, and making the game available for sale in non-PSN countries.

Other studios like EA and Microsoft have traditionally required their accounts on online games since release; but unless I’m wrong, those accounts are also available in more countries.