Video Games- Game of the Year

[Slurktan]

1 hour ago, Kalbear Total Landscaping said:

Again, no insider info yadda yadda

BUT

It would be so fucking cool if Indy was an Xbox exclusive

I understand you work for Microsoft but.... why? I can understand exclusivity for things like Halo and Gears and Uncharted and what not.  But why would it be cool for Bethesda to lose a shit ton of money?  Like already PS5 sales are almost double that for the series X and that gap is only going to grow based on previous generation data.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Slurktan said:

I understand you work for Microsoft but.... why? I can understand exclusivity for things like Halo and Gears and Uncharted and what not.  But why would it be cool for Bethesda to lose a shit ton of money?  Like already PS5 sales are almost double that for the series X and that gap is only going to grow based on previous generation data.

I suspect the idea is not to roll over and accept that but stay in the fight, and having a well-received, Uncharted-style Indiana Jones game exclusive to X-Box, PC and Game Pass would be a fairly formidable weapon in that.

The only caveat against that is the pedigree of the developers. MachineGames have made a series of very solid 7/10 FPS games in the Wolfenstein universe, but nothing more than that. I wouldn't get too excited about this game until they announce they've brought in Amy Hennig to write or something.

[Rhom]

1 minute ago, Werthead said:

I suspect the idea is not to roll over and accept that but stay in the fight, and having a well-received, Uncharted-style Indiana Jones game exclusive to X-Box, PC and Game Pass would be a fairly formidable weapon in that.

The only caveat against that is the pedigree of the developers. MachineGames have made a series of very solid 7/10 FPS games in the Wolfenstein universe, but nothing more than that. I wouldn't get too excited about this game until they announce they've brought in Amy Hennig to write or something.

Okay... but again, if its on PC... why the hell would I buy an XBox for that?

[Ran]

To be fair to MachineGames, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus was rated in the high 8s/80s by a number of outlets, with a mid-80s score for the PS4 and PC versions at Metacritic.

I did not realize they were a Swedish company, by the by, but Linda knew about it all before me because our local paper reported on it on their website. Pretty cool how many pretty good game studios are found here (DICE, Avalanche, Paradox, etc.)

As to why an X-Box exclusive would be cool, I admit I can't speak for Kalbear's perspective on it, but to be sure if you believe in a platform and want it to succeed, great exclusive titles are something you want because they do move sales.

I've never actually played a Bethesda game before, and am not even sure I own one.

[Slurktan]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

As to why an X-Box exclusive would be cool, I admit I can't speak for Kalbear's perspective on it, but to be sure if you believe in a platform and want it to succeed, great exclusive titles are something you want because they do move sales.I

I can get that perspective but not for the new Xbox, literally nothing on it is exclusive and never will be by design for better or worse.  So why would you lose yourself a crap ton of sony money?  It doesn't make much sense. Especially since Lucasfilm Games is owned by Disney and Disney above all else wants all of the money, all of the time from everything.

[Ran]

23 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

I can get that perspective but not for the new Xbox, literally nothing on it is exclusive and never will be by design for better or worse.  So why would you lose yourself a crap ton of sony money?  It doesn't make much sense. Especially since Lucasfilm Games is owned by Disney and Disney above all else wants all of the money, all of the time from everything.

Why is HBO Max launching a mess of blockbuster films on television? They're trading money for share, in part because of uncertainty  about the future prospects its products.

Why is Disney releasing major films on Disney+ first? Trading money for share, in part because of uncertainty about future prospects of its products.

Why would MS pay big bucks for exclusive rights to a Bethesda Indiana Jones game? Trading money for shares, in part because of uncertainty about future prospects of its product.

Like, I don't know if Microsoft will do it or not, and I don't know if Lucasfilms Games would go for it. But Disney is not a competitor in the console space, so that's at least one thing they wouldn't necessarily care about provided they were convinced that being a console/console-and-PC exclusive would accrue them more benefit.

[Werthead]

49 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Okay... but again, if its on PC... why the hell would I buy an XBox for that?

You don't. But you might pick it up on Game Pass for a negligible sum of money (and it you want to get it on Steam instead for £50, why not?) and that's what Microsoft are interested in. Game Pass is their new model moving forwards and X-Box is basically now a bespoke PC for delivering that experience. If you want to use an actual PC instead, sure. If, in the future, they develop a streaming version of Game Pass which you can use with a smart TV app, then that's cool as well.

[Slurktan]

12 minutes ago, Ran said:

Why is HBO Max launching a mess of blockbuster films on television? They're trading money for share, in part because of uncertainty  about the future prospects its products.

Why is Disney releasing major films on Disney+ first? Trading money for share, in part because of uncertainty about future prospects of its products.

Why would MS pay big bucks for exclusive rights to a Bethesda Indiana Jones game? Trading money for shares, in part because of uncertainty about future prospects of its product.

Like, I don't know if Microsoft will do it or not, and I don't know if Lucasfilms Games would go for it. But Disney is not a competitor in the console space, so that's at least one thing they wouldn't necessarily care about provided they were convinced that being a console/console-and-PC exclusive would accrue them more benefit.

I'm not asking why the first three would happen.  They are obvious.  I'm not even really asking about your fourth part even though from a Disney point of view they would be losing a *significant* amount of money unless paid them an Estimate up front of what they could make off of Sony/Nintendo.  I'm asking why it would be "fucking cool" to have a beloved franchise be exclusive so that the vast majority (Sony/Nintendo) of console players would have to fork over another stream of revenue to play it.  How is that "fucking cool"? It's predatory bullshit.

[Werthead]

 

Quote

I did not realize they were a Swedish company, by the by, but Linda knew about it all before me because our local paper reported on it on their website. Pretty cool how many pretty good game studios are found here (DICE, Avalanche, Paradox, etc.)

MachineGames' thing seems to be "punching Nazis" which no doubt the new Indy game will lean into.

Quote

I've never actually played a Bethesda game before, and am not even sure I own one.

"Bethesda" is a bit of a weird branding exercise. There's Bethesda Game Studios themselves (who are actually now four studios, the main and oldest one in Bethesda, Maryland) who make the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, and are currently working on new IP Starfield (a single-player, open-world space opera) as well as prepping Elder Scrolls VI (the long-delayed sequel to Skyrim). One of their four studios is a multiplayer-focused one, which is currently supporting and expanding Fallout 76.

Above them is Bethesda Softworks, who are the owner of id (who make the Doom games), Arkane (best-known for the Dishonored series and Prey) and MachineGames (the Wolfenstein series and this new Indy game).

Above Bethesda Softworks is Zenimax Media, a tangent of which makes The Elder Scrolls Online. And the company that owns them is now Microsoft.

Bethesda as a publisher make some super games: the two Dishonored games and Prey are absolutely excellent, and id and MachineGames are very good at what they do (linear first-person shooters). Bethesda Game Studios have become a bit of a punching bag recently, especially after ballsing up the release of Fallout 76, but generally make good, solid open-world RPGs, albeit ones with a focus on exploration and character builds over story and characters.

[Ran]

16 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

I'm asking why it would be "fucking cool" to have a beloved franchise be exclusive so that the vast majority (Sony/Nintendo) of console players would have to fork over another stream of revenue to play it.  How is that "fucking cool"? It's predatory bullshit.

I don't think exclusivity is predatory at all. They're games, not life-saving drugs. No one needs an Indiana Jones game. No one needs a console, even.

I say this as someone who hasn't owned a console since the Super Nintendo. There's a ton of games I might have been interested in that I didn't play because they were console exclusives. There's always other games to try.

 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Slurktan said:

I can get that perspective but not for the new Xbox, literally nothing on it is exclusive and never will be by design for better or worse.  So why would you lose yourself a crap ton of sony money?  It doesn't make much sense. Especially since Lucasfilm Games is owned by Disney and Disney above all else wants all of the money, all of the time from everything.

Sorry, what? There are plenty of things that are going to be Xbox or Xbox+PC exclusive. While MS is very much about attempting to reach people where they want to play, it's absolutely the case that Xbox is still planning on exclusivity. 

And is Uncharted 'predatory' because it's on PS? Is Mario? That seems like a weird argument. 

I think it would be really fucking cool because it's an awesome IP and it would be really neat to be the home of one of the most iconic characters out there. I would think the same about Spider-Man (another predatory thing apparently) or X-Men or Star Wars. 

[Luzifer's right hand]

Any recommendations for games that make good use of RT apart from Cyberpunk 2077? Control looks interesting and I did enjoy the Max Payne games. 

[Ran]

9 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

Any recommendations for games that make good use of RT apart from Cyberpunk 2077? Control looks interesting and I did enjoy the Max Payne games. 

Control was definitely the game I most saw being used as a showcase for raytracing prior to Cyberpunk. At launch, Shadow of the Tomb Raider also got a lot of focus. 

Ghostrunner has a cyberpunk vibe, but it's a very fast-paced FPS melee game with a lot of movement. Watch Dog Legions also has raytracing, I think, but I've heard mixed responses to that game compared to its predecessors.

Observer: System Redux -- which features Rutger Haeur in his first (and nearly last) direct video game appearance -- is an update of the game from 2017, with raytracing added. It's a cyberpunk setting, sort of psychological horror as I recall.

[Slurktan]

2 hours ago, Kalbear Total Landscaping said:

Sorry, what? There are plenty of things that are going to be Xbox or Xbox+PC exclusive. While MS is very much about attempting to reach people where they want to play, it's absolutely the case that Xbox is still planning on exclusivity. 

And is Uncharted 'predatory' because it's on PS? Is Mario? That seems like a weird argument. 

I think it would be really fucking cool because it's an awesome IP and it would be really neat to be the home of one of the most iconic characters out there. I would think the same about Spider-Man (another predatory thing apparently) or X-Men or Star Wars. 

In this case specifically the 2 Spiderman games, yes i think its pretty shitty they are only on PS. Uncharted and Mario are created on their platform same as Halo. Spiderman and Indiana Jones are not, from a games perspective it would be extremely shitty if say dark souls 4 only came out on PS because Dark Souls was not created on one platform.. But hey to each their own.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Slurktan said:

In this case specifically the 2 Spiderman games, yes i think its pretty shitty they are only on PS. Uncharted and Mario are created on their platform same as Halo. Spiderman and Indiana Jones are not, from a games perspective it would be extremely shitty if say dark souls 4 only came out on PS because Dark Souls was not created on one platform.. But hey to each their own.

The only reason Halo was on a platform is because MS bought that property and made a deal with Bungie.

Ya know, just like they did with Bethesda. 

I guess I don't get why one is okay and the other is not. I can see being against ANY console exclusives and that's something I respect, but if MS owns the studio and pays for the IP why shouldn't they be able to make it exclusive if they so desire?

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Slurktan said:

In this case specifically the 2 Spiderman games, yes i think its pretty shitty they are only on PS. Uncharted and Mario are created on their platform same as Halo. Spiderman and Indiana Jones are not, from a games perspective it would be extremely shitty if say dark souls 4 only came out on PS because Dark Souls was not created on one platform.. But hey to each their own.

Worth noting that all of Bungie's early marketing for Halo was on PC (Bungie's prior series, Myth, had been PC-exclusive, and their series before that, Marathon, had been on Mac, oddly) and PC gamers were really excited about the game and what they were planning, and then Microsoft poached it and made it X-Box exclusive, and some of the game's more promising features were cut because the OG X-Box couldn't remotely handle them from a technical point of view (so even the PC port of Halo was still a pale copy of the game they were originally expecting). That pissed a lot of people off.

Exclusives are nothing new. Even taking previously multiformat games and making them single-format (the first two Halos were PC/X-Box, but later games were all X-Box until last year, when they ported the rest to PC; Final Fantasy VII and VIII were PS/PC but then PS-exclusive until recently, etc).

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I've seem to hit a dead end early on in GTA5. Shit.

[Werthead]

8 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I've seem to hit a dead end early on in GTA5. Shit.

How so?

You can't "fail the game" in any way. IIRC, it's impossible to even die, you just end up at the hospital with a very nominal fine and you have to restart any missions that were in progress.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, Werthead said:

How so?

You can't "fail the game" in any way. IIRC, it's impossible to even die, you just end up at the hospital with a very nominal fine and you have to restart any missions that were in progress.

I don't have any missions on the map for either character. Best I can guess is the game wants me to go to the firing range or just explore the random stuff on the map. 

[Ran]

And another as Lucasfilms Game announces another new game: Ubisoft Massive are developing a open-world Star Wars game. Notably, Massive is yet another Swedish company (and one I forgot to mention directly when rattling off a few of the notable Swedish game developers). Given that the Battlefront games come from DICE, that's a major chunk of Lucasfilms IP that Swedish developers are behind. Pretty cool.

Looks like creative director Julian Gerighty is behind The Division 2. Wonder if this means the game will be in that vein, or if they'll look more at the open world titles Ubisoft puts out like Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Assassin's Creed, etc...