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Ibblebibble posted:It might be a case of country-specific terminology, because IIRC when you say "simulation game" in Japan they would think you mean "tactics game" or something like that (someone please correct me on this, all I remember is that "simulation game" doesn't have the same meaning in Japan as it does in the West). Judging by what I've seen on Japanese game shops, the "simulation" category seems to be any game where you have some form of "numbers go up" component (that isnt' an RPG) like you have in what we generally call "management" games, whether that's managing a person, a group of people or a company of some sort. A lot of tactics games as you mention also tend to fall under this, like for example Fire Emblem. It seems to be a pretty broad genre definition. *Edit* I took this from DLsite, and the category seems even broader than I thought, since from what I can see it also includes more or less the strategy game genre and what we too call simulation games like train and flight sims.  The genres I can choose from in their store are (translated): Action Quiz Adventure Roleplaying Table (probably tabletop?) Digital Novel Simulation Typing Shooting Puzzle Others AG3 fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Jun 16, 2023 |
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Jun 16, 2023 07:49
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AG3 posted:Judging by what I've seen on Japanese game shops, the "simulation" category seems to be any game where you have some form of "numbers go up" component (that isnt' an RPG) like you have in what we generally call "managment" games, whether that's managing a person, a group of people or a company of some sort. A lot of tactics games as you mention also tend to fall under this, like for example Fire Emblem. It seems to be a pretty broad genre definition. It's kind of a three-part fusion of what English standard usage terms as strategy/grand strategy/RTS, plus management (including citybuilders and business/personnel management, including within that the crunchier/open-endeder end of "datesims" or "tactical RPGs",) plus what English terms simulators including under that the crunchier end of racing games. Very high-level category which basically boils down to "when you lose, are you failing at an assigned task (not SLG) or at a personal goal (yes SLG)".
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Jun 16, 2023 08:25
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Canine Blues Arooo posted:I don't have any official insights, but just anecdotes. What I have noticed is that several of my extended family that have engaged with mobile gacha crap in some capacity have just stopped, citing that it 'seems like a scam' after their drug of choice went out of service a few times. It seems like you can only run that scam then shut the game down and run it again so many times before people see the real shape of things. Dragalia Lost specifically seemed to shock a few people when it shut down and turned them off of mobile entirely. That makes sense, one of those things that once you go cold turkey it's never the same again and you can see the strings. Mandoric posted:It's kind of a three-part fusion of what English standard usage terms as strategy/grand strategy/RTS, plus management (including citybuilders and business/personnel management, including within that the crunchier/open-endeder end of "datesims" or "tactical RPGs",) plus what English terms simulators including under that the crunchier end of racing games. Very high-level category which basically boils down to "when you lose, are you failing at an assigned task (not SLG) or at a personal goal (yes SLG)". Nice to know that video game genres are a hilarious mess of fuzzy, ambiguous, misleading and misused terms in languages other than English too. Makes sense considering it covers Football Manager and possibly even Madden and FIFA.
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Jun 16, 2023 08:29
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https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-admits-xbox-has-lost-the-console-wars-as-it-battles-for-69-billion-activision-blizzard-buyout They've hosed the pooch and are trying to moneybag out of the disaster.
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Jun 22, 2023 21:25
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StratGoatCom posted:https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-admits-xbox-has-lost-the-console-wars-as-it-battles-for-69-billion-activision-blizzard-buyout was this ever even in question the xbox one was such a monumentally bad idea with such awful messaging that whatever goodwill they had from the 360 was completely obliterated, and their game output for the last ten years, and ESPECIALLY the last 5, has been very slow and full of more disappointments than successes. don mattrick pissed the brand down his leg and phil spencer has not been able to rebuild things because poo poo like redfall keeps getting hyped up as the next thing that will justify xbox only for it to suck a fat chode. DEEP STATE PLOT fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Jun 22, 2023 |
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Jun 22, 2023 22:00
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AG3 posted:Table (probably tabletop?)
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Jun 22, 2023 22:03
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StratGoatCom posted:https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-admits-xbox-has-lost-the-console-wars-as-it-battles-for-69-billion-activision-blizzard-buyout
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Jun 22, 2023 22:22
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StratGoatCom posted:https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-admits-xbox-has-lost-the-console-wars-as-it-battles-for-69-billion-activision-blizzard-buyout microsoft proposed a motion that had one set of redactions inadvertently then submitted an corrected version with more redactions, asked for the court to remove the original but nothing happened. i mean the court responded to other motions past that but docket entry 113 asking for 106-108 to be struck has been ignored: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.413969/gov.uscourts.cand.413969.113.0_1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.413969/gov.uscourts.cand.413969.111.0.pdf pg 8 of the pdf  https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.413969/gov.uscourts.cand.413969.108.0.pdf pg 8 of the pdf  the other redactions are about expert witness opinion surrounding all of these figures (and pretty boring) but the above are what microsoft submitted to court nothing new for anyone following at home bar this being the first time they've confirmed any console figures in .. 8 years? more?
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Jun 22, 2023 23:04
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DEEP STATE PLOT posted:was this ever even in question Arguably, loving up the PS3 launch, losing MS the console wars AND  ?Goddamn, Phil Harrison was one prolific failure.
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Jun 22, 2023 23:19
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Yeah this has been pretty clear for years now. Microsoft is happy to sell consoles (and is apparently doing it well this generation) but all but admitted years ago that it’s way to the top of the gaming market isn’t by selling more of them than Sony or Nintendo.
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Jun 22, 2023 23:25
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I'm gonna be blunt, I do not have a good feeling about Starfield, something just smells off, just on top of that.
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Jun 22, 2023 23:26
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StratGoatCom posted:I'm gonna be blunt, I do not have a good feeling about Starfield, something just smells off, just on top of that. Eh I dunno, I think the overwhelming takeaway from people who watched the presentation and then a few that had hands on with it is that it's going to be a proper rear end Bethesda RPG. I guess whether that's good or not is up to you but it will absolutely be good for Microsoft. Generally Microsoft hasn't had an issue with releasing lots of bad games recently - basically just Redfall. It's more been doing so consistently and ones that are larger commercial products.
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Jun 23, 2023 00:44
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No one that is allowed to talk about it has had anywhere near enough access to Starfield to make any real judgement about it. Presentations are worth exactly gently caress all, and any demo is going to be a carefully carved out slice of the game. It could be bomb as gently caress. It could be Cyperpunk at launch day. The hype train around AAA games though makes zero rational sense past, 'I think this fantasy / theme / genre is cool'.
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Jun 23, 2023 07:08
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Starfield has all the pieces to be exactly the sort of game that I just get lost in forever, but Bethesda's reputation of loving up on the technical end surely has to carry some weight. Microsoft bought them, but that's not guarantee they're going around with a sign saying "LISTEN TO YOUR QA PEOPLE" in one hand and a rolled up newspaper in the other.
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Jun 23, 2023 09:03
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According to 'Works on my machine' doctrine Starfield will be just as good as previous Bethesda games I've played since Oblivion. Maybe it'll be the exception to the rule? Who knows.
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Jun 23, 2023 09:26
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DEEP STATE PLOT posted:the xbox one was such a monumentally bad idea with such awful messaging that whatever goodwill they had from the 360 was completely obliterated, and their game output for the last ten years, and ESPECIALLY the last 5, has been very slow and full of more disappointments than successes. don mattrick pissed the brand down his leg and phil spencer has not been able to rebuild things because poo poo like redfall keeps getting hyped up as the next thing that will justify xbox only for it to suck a fat chode. The best part was the hilariously convoluted game sharing scheme they came up with, then Sony making a short joke video where they demonstrate their game sharing system with Shuuhei Yoshida handing a game disc over to Adam Boyes.
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Jun 23, 2023 09:52
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Canine Blues Arooo posted:No one that is allowed to talk about it has had anywhere near enough access to Starfield to make any real judgement about it. Presentations are worth exactly gently caress all, and any demo is going to be a carefully carved out slice of the game. It's a Bethesda game, it's going to be the latter on a technical level. It'll be interesting to see how people react to it though, they've gotten a lot of leeway over the years for their hosed up game launches. It's also worth remembering it's their only major first party release for at least the next 7 months, which isn't great when you remember they've built their business around a loss leading subscription service that apparently isn't doing that well and that they just put the price up on. Never mind consoles I want to see this court case bring up some hard numbers on the Game Pass subs since PS+ has been fairly stagnant in user count for a long time now. Anyway it's funny that Microsoft keep whining about how damaging exclusives are and then it immediately it comes out that they had the clout to change a multi-format contract with Disney to make the Indiana Jones game an exclusive.
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Jun 23, 2023 11:03
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MechaCrash posted:Starfield has all the pieces to be exactly the sort of game that I just get lost in forever, but Bethesda's reputation of loving up on the technical end surely has to carry some weight. They sell a godzillian units and everyone loves them when they don't fix the jank. So clearly this isn't something they need to do.
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Jun 23, 2023 12:00
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leper khan posted:They sell a godzillian units and everyone loves them when they don't fix the jank. So clearly this isn't something they need to do. There is something to glitchy games when they don't break actual progress in the game, and I'm looking forward to, say, seeing a spaceship suddenly glitch out and look like something out of an Escher drawing shortly before it explodes. Or if the "gib zombie" bug still exists, but for spaceships. I wouldn't pay full price for Starfield, but I'm certainly looking forward to experiencing it. And yes, I did enjoy Goat Simulator, how can you tell?
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Jun 23, 2023 12:11
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I've never been one for the big Bethesda games, but Starfield does look like it might be my jam. But I'm going to wait for the inevitable bugfixes, DLC and fan patches to make it work.
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Jun 23, 2023 13:20
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For non-starfield discussion, the Swedish and Danish police have established POP (police online patrol). It's a team of police officers who have their own Twitch channel and Tik-Tok account where they invite kids to play on minecraft servers, CS:GO, share dumb memes, etc: https://www.twitch.tv/politietsonlinepatrulje https://www.tiktok.com/@onlinepatrulje The point of it is to establish a relatable point of contact where kids can learn about online safety and feel comfortable reporting more serious problems like sextortion, sharing of their or other kids' nude pictures in a school, thoughts of self harm and a number of other issues that have been a growing problem. They also intersperse their content with educational content on how to be safe in online spaces, avoid scams and so on. I think it's a neat idea for reaching out to a group that otherwise doesn't have an authority to reach out to who has any understanding of what they deal with. Not sure how well it works. It's also very funny watching hardened cops surrounded by gaming gear and having a lot of fun. Disclaimer: Danish and Swedish police in particular are real shits in other contexts. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Jun 23, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2023 13:30
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It doesn't, this kind of thing is just the latest evolution of those talks cops do in schools that everyone treats as a free hour to not pay attention to anything except it's relying on the kids to come to them. Which they won't do because why would a kid watch a cop stream on Twitch when they could just keep watching Pokimane or whoever.
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Jun 23, 2023 13:42
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Fruits of the sea posted:For non-starfield discussion, the Swedish and Danish police have established POP (police online patrol). It's a team of police officers who have their own Twitch channel and Tik-Tok account where they invite kids to play on minecraft servers, CS:GO, share dumb memes, etc: https://www.twitch.tv/politietsonlinepatrulje https://www.tiktok.com/@onlinepatrulje Huh, it's good to see police doing actual community outreach and working WITH the community rather tha- quote:Disclaimer: Danish and Swedish police in particular are real shits in other contexts. ... oh 
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Jun 23, 2023 13:44
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njsykora posted:It doesn't, this kind of thing is just the latest evolution of those talks cops do in schools that everyone treats as a free hour to not pay attention to anything except it's relying on the kids to come to them. Which they won't do because why would a kid watch a cop stream on Twitch when they could just keep watching Pokimane or whoever. I remember those talks! JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS. Oh and corny made-up videos of kids on steroids ruining their lives Tbf, the police explicitly don't shame children - which is the main impression I got from my childhood and also how I learned not to talk about some poo poo that went down. But yeah, we need some numbers to know if its effective at all. If you can share your data on this, I'd love to see it
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Jun 23, 2023 13:58
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A cache of new FTC vs. Microsoft documents have been made public if you have any interest in looking at old Xbox internal documents related to their business or potential acquisitions or reading emails like Pete Hines being annoyed that Todd Howard is going to have to answer "why are ATVI games going to be multiplatform and ES6 isn't" all the time or Phil Spencer comparing their console business in 2019 to Polaroid vis-a-vi mobile gaming or potentially doxxing his ResetEra username. Some fun stuff! A lot of it is also 4 years old so I imagine there's a good chance it's not really relevant anymore. Anno fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Jun 27, 2023 |
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Jun 27, 2023 01:43
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There's other fun things in there from more recently, like how Phil wanted to buy Sega in 2020 and it was still on a list of target aquisitions in 2021. As were Zynga, Niantic, Supergiant, IO Interactive and hilariously, Bungie. https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/26/23774482/microsoft-sega-bungie-acquisition-targets-internal-email-xbox
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Jun 27, 2023 01:51
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Canine Blues Arooo posted:No one that is allowed to talk about it has had anywhere near enough access to Starfield to make any real judgement about it. Presentations are worth exactly gently caress all, and any demo is going to be a carefully carved out slice of the game. imo games marketing has gotten way too good and effective to the point that it's basically meaningless. you could sell a literal potato to gamers with a proper AAA marketing campaign and sufficiently thin, deep fried vertical slices
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Jun 27, 2023 02:18
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Herstory Begins Now posted:imo games marketing has gotten way too good and effective to the point that it's basically meaningless. you could sell a literal potato to gamers with a proper AAA marketing campaign and sufficiently thin, deep fried vertical slices so what you're saying is that the next gen will be decided by who makes the best hasselback potatoes
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Jun 27, 2023 02:33
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Arivia posted:so what you're saying is that the next gen will be decided by who makes the best hasselback potatoes In that case my money is on Nvidia
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Jun 27, 2023 03:15
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i don't think it's true that games marketing has gotten so good it's meaningless because aaa flops still happen. just look at some of square's output over the last few years for instance microsoft's 2021 top console/pc developer acquisitions list was the following: behaviour interactive (dead by daylight) housemarque (since acquired by sony) people can fly (outriders - this is a weird one, outriders was apparently successful enough to impress microsoft and they really haven't done much else that anyone cares about. they have an unannounced microsoft-published title in the works) remedy entertainment 11 bit studios (frostpunk) bohemia interactive (arma) bungie (since acquired by sony) crytek io interactive larian studios manticore games (they make some roblox clone i've never heard of and are heavily into cryptocurrency metaverse nonsense) playdead (limbo/inside) rebellion developments (sniper elite) thunderful (steamworld) supergiant games paradox interactive sega they then decide the top opportunities are bungie & io (for social engagement) and supergiant and thunderful (for audience expansion) for mobile developers the top acquistion candidates list is partially redacted so you can infer they might be still in the process of trying to acquire some other mobile developers that aren't playrix, zynga, netmarble, niantic, scopely, glu mobile, or gamevil, which are all listed. lih fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Jun 27, 2023 |
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Jun 27, 2023 03:23
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Microsoft turning supergiant into an Xbox exclusive developer is some darkest timeline poo poo
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Jun 27, 2023 04:18
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the full document is here: https://files.cand.uscourts.gov/files/23-cv-02880_FTC_v_Microsoft/RX1141%20REDACTED.pdf i doubt supergiant would have been interested really, having just come off a gigantic success with hades. most of microsoft's acquisitions were studios with close ties to xbox and/or aaa ambitions that they didn't quite have the resources to consistently realise, so you can understand why getting acquired would have been appealing to all of them. the developer of one of the biggest indie hits in recent years would have little need for microsoft's additional resources and stability right now.
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Jun 27, 2023 04:47
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lih posted:
When will Sony's rampant acquisitions be quelled? Ok, sure, Bungie was acquired for $3.6 billion and Microsoft is(was?) paying $68.7 billion for ActiBliz, but Housemarque was an undisclosed sum. That could be anything, maybe even $65.1 billion!
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Jun 27, 2023 05:23
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Housemarque strikes me as an odd target. Not that they aren't regarded as a talented studio, but outside games with Sony's backing none of them sold very well afaik. Case in point, without the inherent attention a PlayStation exclusive gets, I think Returnal bombed on pc. Maybe MS thought they'd be cheap.
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Jun 27, 2023 05:33
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Sony's acquisitions feel a lot like Apple's, where they're spending what is probably pocket change to them for a very specific purpose, be it technology, talent or to fill a specific gap in their games lineup. Looking at that list though Microsoft just looks like a hoarder, like do you really think having Arma in your IP catalogue is going to do anything for you?Rinkles posted:Housemarque strikes me as an odd target. Not that they aren't regarded as a talented studio, but outside games with Sony's backing none of them sold very well afaik. Case in point, without the inherent attention a PlayStation exclusive gets, I think Returnal bombed on pc. njsykora fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Jun 27, 2023 |
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Jun 27, 2023 05:33
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njsykora posted:Sony's acquisitions feel a lot like Apple's, where they're spending what is probably pocket change to them for a very specific purpose, be it technology, talent or to fill a specific gap in their games lineup. Looking at that list though Microsoft just looks like a hoarder, like do you really think having Arma in your IP catalogue is going to do anything for you? Microsoft has a massive amount of cash on hand right now - and their enterprise business outside of Azure is largely a saturated market, beyond a few niche and early stage technologies (largely AI, where OpenAI has the dominant lead). Watching them dump money into gaming, an area where they are clearly second place, makes a ton of sense from an investor/executive perspective. Whether they can make it work is a different story.
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Jun 27, 2023 05:49
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njsykora posted:Returnal was about half the sales on PC as Spiderman if I remember their last financials right but yeah, none of their games ever seem to sell even when they're hugely acclaimed like Returnal was. I wonder how much the "unsupported on the steam deck" mark affects that-- knowing it was a PS5 exclusive I was interested in it but figured it was demanding a 3080 or some poo poo, given how many other playstation ex-exclusives are marked fully supported
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Jun 27, 2023 06:09
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if you look at the document, the list is just a shortlist of companies to give further consider to acquiring after using some heuristics to narrow down potential candidates. we don't know if they ever seriously tried to acquire any of these (except zynga which has been confirmed), just that they gave these all some consideration. for housemarque they seemed to think that they had proven talent (even without commercial success) and that their arcade-style shooters had little overlap with existing xbox ip, so they'd be good for filling out gamepass. they note that sony was already making moves so it seems like the thinking was just it could be worth making a move if sony didn't end up acquiring them. for bohemia the thinking seems to just be that dayz and arma 3 were huge, and they have a lot of experience with live service games, but they note that they've had a bunch of flops more recently. the only ones that seem weirder to think about to me are manticore because they seem completely unproven (and obviously were even less so in early 2021) and seem to have been relying on metaverse hype to get vc funding, and people can fly because i really didn't think outriders had been much of a success but evidently microsoft disagreed lih fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Jun 27, 2023 |
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Jun 27, 2023 06:29
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Outriders had issues (though many of them were more about the live support than the core product), but I think it demonstrated that PCF are a capable developer. It was a well put together spin on a popular genre that attracted a lot of positive attention (again, some of the post release troubles notwithstanding). That kind of solid mid tier production is exactly what MS seemed to want for filling out the GP library.
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Jun 27, 2023 07:08
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People Can Fly also had success working with Microsoft on first party ports already, and had co-developed some popular stuff.
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Jun 27, 2023 07:10
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