April 2025 PCG Article Discussion

[Colif]

Wait a minute... since when do Tomb Raider games care about their scripts?? In the reboot, the second one was the only game with a passable story. Plenty of the older games had weak and/or barebones scripts - just enough to give you an excuse to go to another nation with all new texture mappings.

Its a TV series, not a game.

Following years of rumours, Amazon Prime Video officially revealed plans for a new TV series based on the Tomb Raider games in May 2024.

 

[Johnway]

Piracy isn't the answer as they are removing the servers that the games run on. Stealing game still doesn't let you play it. Online only is their way to stop people playing games for years after. Also a good way to make people keep paying.


Offline single player modes are not good for continued sales... if the game has a shop in it, who is going to buy all the cosmetics if no one else can see them in game? A small percentage, but if you can pair people up efficiently you can make sure those who haven't bought anything can be paired with someone who has bought heaps.

That is why many games that traditionally had a single player offline mode are now online only... and in Diablo 4's case, always multiplayer to make people see all the things they could buy on a store constantly.

I totally wish we could go back to a time where all the best looking gear was in the game. You just had to be good enough to get it, not rich enough to just buy it off a store. Unless store is a reputation vendor in game.
In the past you used to play the game to get the items, now days the games are just advertisements for what is on the store.

What bothers me the most is that even when they deem there is no money to be made from the game (no ones playing/buying it) that they decide to make sure to kill the game? Why not just give it away and let someone else look after it and look after it? What have you got to lose if its not going to make money anyway?

there will be people playing it and i wouldn't be surprised some of the most die hard fans are the ones doing so. Killing the game like that is a smack in the face of their most loyal fanbase as they invest money on various assets etc and all of sudden told they can't because they wrote it into their T&Cs.

Honestly i suspect they're afraid that someone will do a better job and make it a hit and revive it and it does make money. Frankly if that does happen the original publishers deserve it.

lets not forget the simpsons tapped out game, if it were not for private servers and the efforts of the community, the game would be dead and if you're one of those people who invested time and money over a decade playing the game? Tough luck, EA thinks nothing of you.

Lastly is it really that hard/awful to just shut everything down gracefully? to these publishers the answer is no. Burn it all to the ground.

 

[Pifanjr]

What bothers me the most is that even when they deem there is no money to be made from the game (no ones playing/buying it) that they decide to make sure to kill the game? Why not just give it away and let someone else look after it and look after it? What have you got to lose if its not going to make money anyway?

there will be people playing it and i wouldn't be surprised some of the most die hard fans are the ones doing so. Killing the game like that is a smack in the face of their most loyal fanbase as they invest money on various assets etc and all of sudden told they can't because they wrote it into their T&Cs.

Honestly i suspect they're afraid that someone will do a better job and make it a hit and revive it and it does make money. Frankly if that does happen the original publishers deserve it.

lets not forget the simpsons tapped out game, if it were not for private servers and the efforts of the community, the game would be dead and if you're one of those people who invested time and money over a decade playing the game? Tough luck, EA thinks nothing of you.

Lastly is it really that hard/awful to just shut everything down gracefully? to these publishers the answer is no. Burn it all to the ground.

Old games are competition for the new games. One of the major downsides of digital distribution is that old games don't really disappear any more, so every new game has to be significantly better to compete with the old games.

The "most loyal fanbase" who are still playing the old games are not their target demographic, there's probably only a small amount of them and they might not even buy the new products.

The question is whether the damage to their reputation is worth it.

 

[Colif]

Old games are competition for the new games.

Old Better games make them have to meet standards they may not want to or be able to match. That seems to be the theme the last 5 years or so. BG3 was seen as a threat and devs didn't want people to expect all games to be like that... why not?

I agree with Johnway

Destroying all your old games and not letting people simply play them after you deem them not profitable isn't something I want to promote. Just let games die, don't stab them in the heart yourself when people might still enjoy them.

Games as a Service games specifically set up to ensure they die when there is no profit in it. Any game with no offline single player mode should be patched to work without the server, especially if most of the game is local. I totally get online multiplayer games having no future without servers but if you can play alone and not need servers to finish game, just disable them.

1000's of games exist now made by companies who didn't see the games continued existance being reliant on making money. I don't think we should accept that argument now for any game.

Would people still want Half Life 3 20 years or so after previous was released if Valve had stopped selling/supporting it all those years?

It restricts the potential of future games.

The "most loyal fanbase" who are still playing the old games are not their target demographic, there's probably only a small amount of them and they might not even buy the new products.

While it might be true that they aren't the target, most of the time games in a series will only get made if there is some demand already, and the old players do keep franchise alive

Its not often an old dead series comes back without someone being around who plays/played old games.

 

[Johnway]

Old games are competition for the new games. One of the major downsides of digital distribution is that old games don't really disappear any more, so every new game has to be significantly better to compete with the old games.

As it should be. A sequel should be as good as the previous game and more. All the maps, modes and more. Old games should not be seen as competition but as a measuring stick of the absolute minimum to succeed. They can't rest on their laurels and that comes part of the territory. Video games should not be made into a "product" its artistic entertainment. Does it mean an ever growing list of tasks? maybe, maybe not. But that's all irrelevant, its still no excuse for killing a game.

Honestly, i'm not sympathetic towards the AAA(A) industry. They're only as good as their last few games. I'm not going to blindly love bioware or ubisoft if they insist shovelling the same game whilst quality getting worse each time. i'm not going to cry over their problems that they help create. Even less so when they kill my game to force me to get their next game.

I'll throw them a bone and say that the core mechanics don't have to always change, just refine the game mechanics, freshen with some new features, update the graphics, a new story and give me a setting i would play. Make the game like a holiday package or something. I'm a sucker for ubisoft open world games for the right price, but when you have a horrible reminder that you can brick my game(s) i'll think twice buying them.

I'll concede that a good game is might not always equal a good seller, just look at TTLG, but i blame that on marketing failure of the company rather then the consumer. They would gladly spend millions reminding us of well known franchises, trailers for trailers or trailers that do not reflective of the content. The millions should be spent on the new franchises and sold at a price that makes it work. Its perhaps why i gravitate more to Indie games for unique or fresh experiences.

 

[Johnway]

American Truck Simulator is adding a road trip mode where you drive different vehicles, 'say, a powerful pickup or even a sports car'

That enigmatic sound-only tease finally makes sense.

www.pcgamer.com

heres hoping we can have a variety of fun modes like pursuit mode (bounty hunters or cops chasing criminals, cannon ball runners etc)

i would of course settle for a mad max style mod where i can attach guns to my car and drive around making vital deliveries and using machine guns to fend off bandits.