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SirSamVimes posted:Forgot that Bethesda has a parent so fair point. Bethesda has like 5 parents. Bethesda Game Studio, the developer, are owned by, Bethesda Softworks, the publisher, owned by ZeniMax Media, the one with Trump's brother, which are owned by Xbox Game Studios, which are in turn owned by Microsoft Gaming, which are in turned owned by Microsoft.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:20 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 05:22 |
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I think the above mentioned "doesn't have investors/shareholders to answer to" is a pretty good test for independence. I don't know which companies are publicly traded, so don't know if Larian passes that test, but I'd be surprised if Ubisoft isn't. They're huge. e: Volte posted:Larian was a bona fide indie company at one point but Tencent owns 30% of them now. Okay, well I guess that's fair.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:21 |
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skeletronics posted:I think the above mentioned "doesn't have investors/shareholders to answer to" is a pretty good test for independence. I don't know which companies are publicly traded, so don't know if Larian passes that test, but I'd be surprised if Ubisoft isn't. They're huge. Larian Studios has shareholders but Swen Vicke, the founder and the game director, owns 51% of the company together with his wife.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:23 |
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I said come in! posted:Its easier at this point to list the companies not owned by Tencent. The dick sucking factory is still independent
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:24 |
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Velocity Raptor posted:AAA don't mean poo poo anymore now that AAAA has entered the ring. The losers at Larian didn't even charge €70 for their game, they barely count as triple A, let alone 4xA
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:25 |
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I only buy single A games. I can’t handle anymore As
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:32 |
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MarcusSA posted:I only buy single A games. I can’t handle anymore As
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:33 |
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A is a loving stupid letter anyways. Waiting on S-tier games to become a thing before I get back into gaming.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:34 |
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waiting for the elusive AAB game
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:44 |
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This isn't meant as a gotcha but also how involved with BG3 were Wizards of the Coast.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:47 |
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Destiny was an indie game for a while
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:47 |
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kazil posted:waiting for the elusive AAB game
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:49 |
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John Murdoch posted:This isn't meant as a gotcha but also how involved with BG3 were Wizards of the Coast. I think all they did was take Larians money.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:51 |
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I said come in! posted:A is a loving stupid letter anyways. Waiting on S-tier games to become a thing before I get back into gaming. my credit card trembles in anticipation
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:52 |
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I said come in! posted:I think all they did was take Larians money. Showing remarkable restraint and good judgment by their standards
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:57 |
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I said come in! posted:I think all they did was take Larians money. I mean, even if Wizards wasn't watching over their shoulder for the entire development of the game they presumably signed some kind of licensing agreement that placed SOME kind of restriction on what they could and couldn't do. Even if they were completely reasonable terms, Wizards had some degree of influence over the game. I have no idea how you compare that to or factor it in to discussions about indie-ness but surely you can't just gloss over the fact that BG3 is a Dungeons and Dragons branded product.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:58 |
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I got the impression that WOTC doesn't really care about D&D compared to Magic the Gathering, which might not be unwise tbh.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:58 |
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I read a few articles that said the main sources of income for Hasbro in 2023 were BG3 and Monopoly (?), so that might change in the future
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 21:00 |
“Indie” means “small budget/small team” to some and “the developer doesn’t have a separate publisher/investor/whatever” to some others. I think the latter is arguably more useful but they’re both kinda messy these days imo.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 21:02 |
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I mean, "indie" as in "not beholden to a publisher" still has meaning. Baldur's Gate 3 would never have been greenlit by any publisher. Larger ones because of the uncertain ROI, smaller ones because they couldn't afford it.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 21:07 |
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I think you'd be hard-pressed to say that anything published by Devolver isn't indie.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 21:08 |
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Time for my periodic check of how well BG3 is doing x months after release Sixth place. The absolute mad lads really did it
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 21:09 |
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Phlegmish posted:Time for my periodic check of how well BG3 is doing x months after release Because I know what gets the clicks, I decided to look at Starfield as well. They're way too far down to count the position, but they're currently being beaten by games such as L.A. Noire, Cuphead, and Dragon's Dogma 2, which is a month and a half away from being released. In all fairness, they are outperforming Garry's Mod
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 21:15 |
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Anno posted:“Indie” means “small budget/small team” to some and “the developer doesn’t have a separate publisher/investor/whatever” to some others. I think the latter is arguably more useful but they’re both kinda messy these days imo. Indie Games are made by Auteur Devs who want to teach you an important lesson. They have 2D pixel art (because Auteur Devs are not art guys) and come in heavily discounted Bundles. Thank you, Gaben!
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 21:24 |
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Of course, there's also Warframe, which is literally an AABC game.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 21:32 |
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Phlegmish posted:I read a few articles that said the main sources of income for Hasbro in 2023 were BG3 and Monopoly (?), so that might change in the future Whoa that kinda surprises me, I had always just assumed (wrongly apparently) Magic the Gathering was their flagship product that was a money printer.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 21:37 |
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I said come in! posted:Whoa that kinda surprises me, I had always just assumed (wrongly apparently) Magic the Gathering was their flagship product that was a money printer. https://investor.hasbro.com/news-releases/news-release-details/hasbro-reports-third-quarter-2023-financial-results Re-reading, MTG probably is still their biggest single source of income, but BG3's breakaway success might cause them to shift focus
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 21:40 |
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Velocity Raptor posted:I made a similar post elsewhere in this thread a while ago, but GaaS is a doomed business model to begin with. There is only so much time and money that people have that not everything can be a forever game printing money non-stop. Yet every publisher keep pushing this type of game. Sony just cancelled 6 of a planned 12 () GaaS games. Business/IT student here: yeah the conclusion of a market analysis and strategy would probably be that. You can try to bulldoze your way in by throwing cash at the problem but without a substantially different or better offering, the most popular GaaS titles won’t cede their customers. Especially not the whales, who have too much invested in a game to consider leaving it. Plus the publishers with established titles will try to bully new games out of the market by pumping out more content and advertising. But development isn’t necessarily dictated by logic if investors want to pump money into a doomed game. All that said, it wouldn’t surprise me if quite a few of the failing GaaS titles recoup their costs or turn a profit. A lot of players pick up a title for a couple months, buy a battle pass and move on to the next new thing when they get bored. E: late edit but after looking at a bunch businesses outside of the games industry, I’m developing a suspicion that a significant number of x as a service products have a planned obsolescence. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Feb 13, 2024 |
# ? Feb 13, 2024 21:44 |
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John Murdoch posted:I mean, even if Wizards wasn't watching over their shoulder for the entire development of the game they presumably signed some kind of licensing agreement that placed SOME kind of restriction on what they could and couldn't do. Even if they were completely reasonable terms, Wizards had some degree of influence over the game. I have no idea how you compare that to or factor it in to discussions about indie-ness but surely you can't just gloss over the fact that BG3 is a Dungeons and Dragons branded product.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 21:57 |
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hm i think you missed a few i wonder why lol (it's a $40 bundle too lol)
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 21:58 |
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Owl Inspector posted:It should be illegal to put a colon in the title of a game that isn’t already part of a series, or maybe just in general HOGs are the only ones that should be allowed to use colons. They pretty much cornered the market.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 22:02 |
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The 7th Guest posted:
Can you even play the story stuff in these expansions? I've heard they pulled the plug on some of them.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 22:06 |
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I said come in! posted:I think of indie games as having low budgets and the dev studio self funds and publishes, but even that is problematic because what does that actually mean? what is the threshold between indie and large budget game studio? Baldur's Gate 3 arguably isn't an indie game, it was crowdfunded and had investors as well. BG3 was not crowdfunded. They had a long early access period where they were open about the working going into the game with regular updates but they skipped crowdfunding completely.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 22:09 |
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D:OS2 was crowdfunded, and the revenue from that funded BG3, so it was second-generation crowdfunded
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 22:12 |
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SirSamVimes posted:That's like saying starfield is an indie game because Bethesda self published
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 22:21 |
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fez_machine posted:BG3 was not crowdfunded. They had a long early access period where they were open about the working going into the game with regular updates but they skipped crowdfunding completely. That's a very nuanced distinction. They got shitloads of money for a demo, that's crowd funded imo
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 22:24 |
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Megazver posted:Can you even play the story stuff in these expansions? I've heard they pulled the plug on some of them. Yes except for Forsaken
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 22:24 |
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Gromit posted:HOGs are the only ones that should be allowed to use colons. They pretty much cornered the market. My HOG definitely uses colons, if you know what I mean
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 22:26 |
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FishMcCool posted:Of course, there's also Warframe, which is literally an AABC game.
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 22:26 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 05:22 |
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FishMcCool posted:Of course, there's also Warframe, which is literally an AABC game. mystes fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Feb 13, 2024 |
# ? Feb 13, 2024 22:28 |